Who would have thought that the sitcoms of the 1960s and 1970s would make a comeback through summer theater? After Symphorien — a play that continues its tour from August — the Théâtre du Vieux-Terrebonne is resurrecting another television comedy: Me… and the other.
For Kim Lévesque-Lizotte, who was commissioned to write the play, it was more “a love story than a commission.” Nourished in her youth by revivals of Gilles Richer’s situation comedy (broadcast between 1966 and 1971), the forty-year-old felt an “immeasurable love” for Denise Filiatrault and Dominique Michel, these great comic actresses from cabarets.
And according to the author of Simone“the writing is so well mastered that it has aged well. When I watch episodes of Me… and the other one today, I still laugh.” In addition, she does not find as many dated elements, which “would not pass now”, as in other shows from past decades. “These two women are so strong, so masters of their destiny, that I didn’t have to do much of a reread. »
For Kim Lévesque-Lizotte, the duo of this comedy set in the post-Quiet Revolution has an avant-garde dimension: “Two women living together in an apartment, who “date” guys in abundance and who always make the first steps. They have a very strong desire. They never apologize for anything. These are women who take up space, talk and laugh loudly. »
This was no small feat, given the conservatism from which their society was emerging. “What they were proposing, compared to what women were experiencing in their living rooms in Quebec, I think the clash was huge. We are still not far from the time when Quebec women had a lot of babies, from the influence of the Church. It was in 1964 that women had the right to have a bank account without their husband’s signature. Probably many women experienced their freedom vicariously through them. »
This is what makes Dodo and Denise role models. “It is never named in Me…and the other. But they were female models who defended women’s rights through their freedom and their life choices. » Kim Lévesque-Lizotte likes these icons who are distinguished by their journey rather than by what they identify with. “Marjo is my biggest role model of feminism, and she does not define herself as a feminist. She advanced the cause of women through her independence and because she did not fit into social conventions. The protagonists of Me…and the other did not fit into what society expected of them. For me, that makes them feminist figures, that they define themselves [comme telles] or not. And we have a lot to learn from that. It is through actions, by showing different models, that we can move things forward, that we can really demonstrate that we are better off when we are free, that equality is present. Rather than naming it too much. »
Expo 67
The new playwright set her adaptation during Expo 67, the year Montreal hosted the World’s Fair. “We’re so gloomy right now,” she explains. “I wanted to remind people that we’ve already experienced great things, that there was a time when we thought the future was going to be better. To write a story about this Quebec where everything was possible, where women were freeing themselves.”
And she allowed herself some anachronisms here and there, which provide comic relief: “I like the idea that the spectator is further away than the characters, that he knows what is coming in the future. . »
In this recreation, Kim Lévesque-Lizotte kept the core (the manager Monsieur Lavigueur, the concierge Gustave), invented new characters and condensed some of the typical figures from the original show. We will see Dominique and Denise compete to seduce a French crooner, who organizes a talent contest whose prize is a trip with him… But, in the end, the story celebrates above all their friendship, assures the creator. “I wrote it as a tribute to these women, and to Quebec too.”
Even if she “gets carried away” when we talk about feminism, and that “here and there, we will recognize my causes throughout the play”, the author wants to remind us that Me…and the other is first and foremost an entertainment. A comedy punctuated by a few songs and a few dances, written so that an audience of all generations can appreciate it. After four years of co-writing Before the crashthe one who was bored of making jokes got spoiled.
Nostalgia?
But how can we explain the appeal of this resurgence of works from the past? A corpus to which we can notably add Two women in goldwhich will be the subject of a film after the stage adaptation by Catherine Léger. “I think there is a craze for a time when we didn’t yet have the Internet, on the one hand,” says Katharina Niemeyer, professor at the School of Media at the University of Quebec in Montreal. The German-born academic was not familiar with Me…and the otherbut, having developed an interest in nostalgia, she approaches the phenomenon more broadly.
And we have been going through a period of dazzling transformations for several years. “We are in a very accelerated world, where media developments, especially, are going very, very quickly,” she explains. “There are a lot of changes, several wars too, a lot of sad news. So these cultural productions allow us to escape these social accelerations and everything that is going too fast. It does not necessarily mean that it is nostalgia for this era. It is [l’occasion] of a break, actually.”
And this attraction to an analog world is not reserved for older audiences. “Today, many young people, without wanting to go back to the past, would like to know what it was like to have lived without the Internet: how did our parents live before? A cultural production allows you to immerse yourself in it. »
But interest in stories from yesterday is not new in art, Katharina Niemeyer recalls, citing the multiple adaptations of the play. Antigone. “The past remains a source of creation, of rewriting for adaptation to the present time. » And while we see a restorative nostalgia, which consists of wanting to completely restore an era, among certain politicians (“but we idealize this past, obviously, because it is never as perfect as we think”) , the majority of adaptations of a work from yesterday are more part of a process of reflective nostalgia. “We don’t necessarily want to relive that era. Returning to the past perhaps allows us to think differently about the present time. » Thanks to reflective nostalgia, we can “better grasp the present, but also the future”. In short, measure the progress made.
Fights
For Kim Lévesque-Lizotte, this return to the past is not a matter of “sweet nostalgia.” “I think that many works from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s come back because we need to remember where we come from. For me, it’s an opportunity to remember the struggles that [ont été menés]. There is a decline in rights for women and LGBTQ communities, a surge of conservatism at the moment. What is happening in France, in the United States with abortion. The rise of masculinism, the return of tradwife. » Or the valorization by some of a traditional conception of roles.
“I never thought I’d see this in my lifetime! While we have the illusion that we’re in an age of wokeness.” The author deplores feeling more “fear, resistance and a return to old values. Politically, especially. I would really prefer, at the moment, to ask myself questions about how to make the future better, rather than having to continue to defend things that I thought were acquired.”