For the first time since its creation in 2018, the play The Hardingssigned Alexia Bürger, was played in Lac-Mégantic on Sunday, at the heart of the drama she tells. The duty attended this performance, which brought to life a whole range of emotions both for the actors and for those who experienced the tragedy from the inside, almost nine years ago. Story.
“We dreaded being in front of people who lived the story we are telling. We knew it was to be quite emotional. I worked hard to hold things in, especially when I had to name one by one the victims that they knew, that they lost, “says comedian Normand D’Amour once the performance is over, relieved of to have succeeded in delivering his text from A to Z.
In the play — which features three namesakes, three very real Thomas Hardings with different yet parallel stories — Normand D’Amour plays the conductor who was tried for criminal negligence in the Lac-Mégantic disaster and in came out not guilty.
Playing this character in Lac-Mégantic was an additional challenge, admits the actor, who had tears in his eyes at the end of the show, in front of the heartfelt applause of the public. In the room, between the energetic clapping of hands, we heard a few “thank you” launched on the fly and several sighs of relief.
These sighs, they accompanied the whole performance. There were also frank laughs at each caricatural intervention of the insurer (Martin Héroux). But also gasps at the tragic story of the New Zealand researcher (Patrice Dubois) who lost his teenage daughter in a scooter accident. And, of course, suppressed silences and sobs as the comedians immersed the audience in the details of the July 6, 2013 train crash that disfigured his town and killed 47 members of his community.
“We have already played it a dozen times since the start of the tour, and it has never reacted so much in the room. When Martin Héroux [l’assureur] intervenes, people really laughed more than elsewhere. We felt that they were relieved by his intervention, that they needed it,” says Normand D’Amour.
During the post-performance discussion with the actors and the author, several spectators admitted to having clung to this character, to the funniest lines, to keep their heads above water. “If it had been just the story of the Tom Harding we all know, the train driver, it would have been too heavy. It would have been too difficult, ”confided to the Homework Martine Boulet-Pelletier, who lost her sister Marie-France in the tragedy. “We needed those moments of break, to laugh a little, adds her spouse, Serge Pelletier. The insurer, for me, was the joker of the gang. »
Henri-Paul Dostie is not of this opinion. “The insurer is a monster. It’s terrible to think like that, to calculate the cost of a life, ”says the retired professor, who taught several of the victims and who is still very affected by the destruction of his city. “The play is great,” he continues. The sets, the characters, the texts… Everything. But me, it put me back in my anger. It reminds me that there will never be justice. That hurts. »
For her part, Isabelle Boulanger said she was particularly touched by the enumeration of the 47 victims. “It brings us back to this story which is true, which happened to us, which is not just a play. It reminds me that I didn’t just lose my son Frédéric, I lost 19 other people I knew, colleagues, friends, longtime acquaintances. The impact on our community is enormous, and we are still suffering from it,” she confides with tears in her eyes, her voice quivering.
Duty of memory
Well aware of the roller coaster of emotions that she will make the Méganticois experience with her play, the author Alexia Bürger wanted to be present at this stage of the tour in order to explain her approach and listen to the main people concerned.
“This representation in front of you, she underlined, is the one we have been thinking about from the start. We kept asking ourselves: “Do we have the right to talk about this without having experienced it?” She explained that she nevertheless sees her creation as a means of collectively appropriating this tragedy, as Quebecers, in order to better understand it and better prevent a new one. “This piece exists so that no one forgets what happened, what happened to you. »
Among the spectators, several thanked her for having produced this work with “fineness”, “respect”, “sensitivity” and “documentation”. Remember that in her writing process, Alexia Bürger followed part of Thomas Harding’s trial and was in close contact with his lawyer. She also spoke with several residents of Lac-Mégantic and learned a lot to better understand the rail industry and the laws that regulate it.
For Robert Bellefleur, spokesperson for the Coalition of Citizens and Organizations Committed to Rail Safety, The Hardings is an “important” piece long awaited in Lac-Mégantic. “She stirs up business, she makes people think, she informs. »
However, he points out that the room was not full, many families who have lost a loved one not having made the trip. “A lot of people refuse to read anything about the tragedy,” he said. It hurt so much. They need to move on, need to stop suffering. […] For some, this piece is like turning the knife in the wound. »
“We are in the third cohort of victims, continues Mr. Bellefleur. There were the 47 dead, the people who had to be expropriated for the reconstruction of the city center, and those who are going to be expropriated to make way for the bypass”, a file which is far from being closed and which divides the population.