One of the most important directors in the history of Quebec, André Brassard, died Tuesday evening at the age of 76.
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The director, recognized for having brought Quebec theater into modernity, in particular by allowing the joual there – with the complicity of the playwright Michel Tremblay -, died following a long illness. He had been hospitalized for several weeks already.
Barely 22 years old, André Brassard directed the play The Sisters-in-Law by Michel Tremblay, presented at the Théâtre du Rideau Vert in 1968. The presentation of this work, in a popular language, had the effect of a bombshell in the artistic milieu, shaking up the theater codes of the time.
Throughout the four decades that followed, André Brassard directed nearly 160 plays and held various roles, notably as Francophone artistic director at the National Theater School of Canada in Montreal, but above all remained faithful to the works by Michel Tremblay, which he continued to adapt for the theater and even for the cinema, from the 1970s until the 2000s.
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Brassard has notably worn on the screen Francoise Durocher, waitress, Once Upon a Time in the East and The sun rises latethree screenplays by Michel Tremblay.
Appointed artistic director of the French Theater of the National Arts Center in Ottawa (from 1983 to 1989), Brassard directed during this period the controversial production of Britannicus in 1982, Albertine in five stages in 1985, The real world? in 1987, and directs the creation of works by Michel Marc Bouchard including, The Feluettes.
His reading, his gaze and his desire to put all his actors on the same footing are part of his reputation with his peers. During his career, André Brassard has received several honors, including the Denise-Pelletier prize in 2020. He was named Compagnon de l’Ordre des arts et des lettres du Québec in 2021.
The director was slowed down by a stroke in 1999, but was still able to continue practicing his profession in the following years. His career will finally come to an end in 2009, with his staging ofOh good days ! presented at Espace Go.
- Listen to the interview with Michel Tremblay on Sophie Durocher’s show broadcast live every day at 2:38 p.m. via QUB-radio :
The following year, he published a biography, Armband, published in 2010 by Libre Expression. The director confides in his pages about his homosexuality, his drug use and his periods of depression. He also reveals to have a preference for young men, see young boys. He writes in particular: It is not the children who interested me, I am not a pedophile. But let’s say that I’ve always liked little guys up to sixteen years old. As long as they have hair.”
At the time of its release, the book and especially this sentence had caused a lot of reaction.
The man had already been convicted of gross indecency in 1975. He had then spent 90 days spread over several weekends, behind bars. A police raid led to the seizure of pornographic material in his apartment, including photos of naked boys and young men aged 14 to 20.