Staging the Act of Writing: Postmodern Theater in Quebec

Author(s): Jane Moss

Source: The French Review, Vol. 71, No. 6 (May, 1998), pp. 940-948
Published by: American Association of Teachers of French
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THE FRENCHREVIEW,Vol. 71, No. 6, May 1998 Printed in U.S.A.

Staging the Act of Writing:

Postmodern Theater in Quebec
byJaneMoss

THE ARTIST-AS-PROTAGONIST is not a new phenomenon in Quebec drama.

As feminist actresses and writers began to write for the stage from the
mid-seventies through the mid-eighties, numerous biographical dramas,
autobiographical monologues, and poetic plays presented the act of writ-
ing as a traumatic prise de parolethat challenged patriarchal order and the
literary canon.' In the early eighties, gay playwrights Ren6-Daniel Dubois
and Normand Chaurette created experimental plays that brought writers
and texts onto the stage, exposing theatrical conventions and emphasizing
intertextuality.2 Commenting on the recent wave of plays that stage the
act of dramatic writing, Quebec critic Lucie Robert suggests that the trend
masks the narcissism and lack of inspiration of contemporary theater ("De
l'insignifiance et de quelques bijoux," 223-34). While Robert may have a
valid point, I believe that the phenomenon invites a reconsideration of
theatrical self-reflexivity in light of critical debates on postmodernism.
In the past few years, works such as Julie Vincent's Noir de Monde
(1989), Jean-Fre6dric Messier's Le Dernier Dilire permis (1990), Lise Vail-
lancourt's Billy Strauss (1990), Anne Legault's O'Neill (1990), Rene Gin-
gras's La Compagniedes Animaux (1990), Jean-Francois Caron's J'dcriraibi-
ent6t une piece sur les negres (1990), Chaurette's Je vous 6cris du Caire
(1993), and others3 have dramatized the creative act in ways that ques-
tion dramatic realism, the possibility of objective representation, notions
of identity and role-playing. While these plays continue the trends of
feminist and gay drama with the theatricalization of writing and the
thematization of theater, the traumas of female and homosexual identity
and oppression cannot alone explain the continued popularity of the
writer protagonist; we must search elsewhere for the metatheatrical
impulse.
While there is great variation within the group of recent Quebec meta-
theatrical plays, they all share some common traits that could be labelled
postmodern.4 They are all decentered, fragmented plays that feature a
writer confronting his or her own creation and questioning the relation-
ship between literature, truth, and reality. The works employ key metadra-
matic techniques such as auto-representation, mise en abyme,self-reference,
940
POSTMODERNTHEATERIN QUEBEC 941

intertextuality, and a mixture of genres. In dramatizing their own function-

ing, these hybrid texts subvert the realistic tradition of Quebec (and west-
ern) theater, erasing the lines that once divided creative writing from criti-
cal theory, life from art, characters from actors, players from spectators. In
many cases, autobiographical and biographical elements suggest an explo-
ration of the writer's identity and vocation. In all cases, I would suggest,
Quebec metadramas problematize the distinctions between literature, the-
ater, and reality at the same time they betray the playwright's and the
writer/protagonist's desire for authority, that is for authorial control over
a text that is exposed as a literary construct.
Many of the plays were published by "Les 6ditions de la pleine lune" and
"Les Herbes rouges,"5 two publishing houses that specialize in exper-
imental and avant garde writing. It should be pointed out that the critic
who reads the published versions of these plays experiences something
very different from what the spectator sees in performance.6The reader has
the advantage of introductory "Avant-Propos," "Prefaces,"and "Notes du
metteur en scene," as well as explanatory "Saillies" in which the play-
wrights reflect on the composition of their texts. The reader also has lengthy
descriptions of the characters, the stage sets, the music and the lighting.
Detailed didascalia describe and explain what the spectator might find con-
fusing in performance. Intertextual references are identified as such for the
reader (with different type and footnotes) and the non-theatrical structures
of these hybrid texts are clearly labelled. All of these non-dramatic elements
do tend to de-theatricalize the plays in ways which are perhaps less dis-
turbing to the reader than to the spectator.
Let me now turn to two examples of Quebec metadrama: Anne Legault's
O'Neill and Jean-Franqois Caron's J'dcriraibientOtune piece sur les negres.
O'Neill was given a public reading by the Centre d'essai des auteurs dra-
matiques in February 1988 and full productions at Montreal's Th6atre du
Rideau Vert in March 1990 and at Ottawa's Centre National des Arts in
April 1990 before being published by VLB 6diteur. Using the mise en
abyme technique with Pirandellian twists, Legault stages Eugene O'Neill
in the act of writing his autobiographical play, Long Day's Journey into
Night.7 Legault's divided stage recalls Michel Tremblay's 1987 piece, Le
Vrai Monde?, in which a set of "real people" (that is the playwright-pro-
tagonist's family) shares the stage with the set of dramatic characters who
have been created to represent them. But her play adds several levels of
complexity: there is a kind of frame play which dramatizes the O'Neill fam-
ily (second wife, children of first marriage) in their California home at the
time Eugene was writing Long Day's Journeyin 1940, plus a second level
which represents O'Neill's family (father, mother, brother, and alter ego)
in their Connecticut home (as described by the real O'Neill in his work) at
the time of the play's events in 1912, plus yet a third level which consists
of scenes taken directly from Long Day's Journey into Night (that is, a
French translation of it). In Le Vrai Monde?, the "real" family protested
942 FRENCHREVIEW
Marcel's literary portrayal of them; in O'Neill, it is the dramatic characters
who protest against their roles in the play-within-the-play. The 1912 char-
acters speak directly to the 1940 author, and Legault even allows them to
cross the time zone from the 1912 set into the 1940 study. Time, space, and
identity boundaries break down as the play questions the lines between
life, theater, and the literary imagination.
In addition to incorporating fragments of scenes from Long Day's Jour-
ney, O'Neill uses intertextuality to engage in a dialogue on theatrical prac-
tice. In the first tableau, as the 1940 author reminisces about touring with
his father (who made a living playing a swashbuckling role in the melo-
drama, The Count of Monte Cristo), he expresses his disdain for popular
theater and his youthful enthusiasm for the socially-conscious, realist
plays of Ibsen (22-23). From his place in the 1912 decor, the father ex-
presses his pride in Eugene's Broadway successes, but insists that Ameri-
can naturalist theater will never attain the universal appeal of European
drama. According to James O'Neill, no one will remember the characters
in Long Day's Journeyinto Night, but Hedda Gabler will be remembered. In
the second tableau, the character of Eugene's long dead brother crosses
into the 1940 set to engage the author in a discussion that touches upon
the use of biographical material in the process of dramatic creation, that is
on Eugene's rendering of the family drama: "L'horreur qui se repete de
jour en jour, comment 6crire qa? (a se peut pas.Tu prends des morceaux
de paroxysme, tu les arranges, tu les d&coupes, tu les maquilles, le monde
est interloqu6: 'Que de violence et de souffrance dans votre oeuvre, mon
cher O'Neill!' " (87). Jamie says that he bears no grudges for Eugene's neg-
ative portrayal of him, and he summons the family back to acting out
Eugene's script by calling out "Au travail" as he steps back into the 1912
set (89-90). Their mother, however, is not so forgiving. She yells at
Eugene, ordering him to censor his script: "Retire ce que tu viens de dire,
tout de suite .... Tu nous traites comme si on 6tait n6 pour servir a ta
pikce. On meritait pas qa. Tu nous ramenes en 1912 et meme nous, on se
laisse prendre au jeu" (92). At Jamie's urging, Mary-Ellen O'Neill again
takes up her role as Mary Tyrone in the play-within-the-play, but as Eu-
gene continues to write the script, she stops both her own play-acting and
Eugene's play-writing so that she can explain the truth about the past (96).
It is when Mary-Ellen again asks Eugene to revise certain scenes that he
makes the artist's claim to absolute authority. He maintains that his moth-
er-character interests him more than his real mother and that it is his right
to idealize her in his drama:

Tu peux dire ce que tu voudras! La mere de ma piece aurait jamais fait

qa. C'est cette femme-la qui m'interesse, pas toi. Cette femme-la, telle
que je l'ai conque, 6tait franche, honn~te, pure! Son fils Edmund l'ado-
rait. Y avait raison. Que Ellen O'Neill ait &tdmenteuse et malhonnite, Ca
m'est parfaitement 6gal ... Je t'aime maman! Je t'ai toujours aimbe! Tu
vas etre irrdprochable,que tu le veuilles ou non. (100)
POSTMODERNTHEATERIN QUEBEC 943
Of course, Anne Legault's joke with the audience or reader is that she
controls both her own text and the text of O'Neill's play which she has
appropriated.
At the beginning of the fourth tableau, Legault again plays with her meta-
drama as she shows us O'Neill's characters peeking at his notes for the
fourth act of Long Day's Journeywhich they must perform before they can
return to the peace and quiet of the 1912 decor. Horrified by what they
read in the notebooks, the characters must acknowledge their powerless-
ness to alter the script. But authorial control and the freedom of literary
creation do not go unchallenged. When the mysterious figure of the un-
named Jeune Homme makes his entrance into the 1940 frame play, Eugene
loses his voice both literally and figuratively. The Jeune Homme, who
plays the role of Edmund Tyrone in the play-within-the-play, is Eugene's
idealized version of himself, yet he seems to have taken on an existence of
his own (125-27). The relationship is symbiotic: "J'existe pour vous. Mais
l'inverse est aussi vrai: vous existez pour moi. Nos interets se confondent.
Chercher a me nuire, c'est vous nuire a vous-meme" (128). While Le Jeune
Homme has the power to see into Eugene's future, he needs the author to
clarify certain aspects of the past. O'Neill is deeply troubled by his charac-
ters' independence; is this all a dream, he wonders? (132). Jamie O'Neill
thoughtfully suggests for the sly Legault: "A mon avis, la seule explication
possible, c'est qu'y a peut-etre un autre auteur. On est peut-etre tous des
creatures d'auteur" (133). This suggestion of the frame play's status as a
play adds another level to the metadramatic structure of O'Neill, but
Legault adds it just for a laugh, choosing not to pursue auto-referentiality.
She returns to the horrifying family secret revealed by the playwright's
notebook which she teased us with at the beginning of the fourth tableau.
Once Mary-Ellen has forced a promise from Eugene not to reveal the secret
of her nine self-induced miscarriages, the characters are free to play out the
fourth act of the play-within-the-play, but there will be no dinouement to
Long Day's Journeyin Legault's play. Objecting to the dramatic portrayal of
him, James O'Neill invites his author son into the 1912 decor where they
have a nice father-son reunion. After Eugene faces some painful truths
from the past, he returns to his present where he comes to the conclusion
that while one should not write to settle past scores (156), one can write to
ward off death: "Chaque fois que j'6cris, je vois le jour de ma mort. Et
chaque fois que je finis d'&crire,j'ai l'impression de l'avoir fait reculer.
Mais c'est une illusion que je me fais, bien entendu" (158). The epigraph
which accompanies the published version of the text reinforces the idea
that writing is a solitary act that the writer does for him/herself. It is taken
from Roland Barthes's Fragmentsd'un discoursamoureux:
Savoir qu'on n'&critpas pour l'autre, savoir que ces choses que j'&crisne
me feront pas aimer de qui j'aime, savoir que l'&criturene compense
rien, ne sublime rien, qu'elle est pr&cis~mentl tu n'es pas, c'est le
commencement de l'&criture.(O'Neill, 17) oit
944 FRENCHREVIEW
Drama critics were not overly impressed by the theatrical production of
Legault's play. Jean-Marc Larrue called it anecdotal, superficial, overly reli-
ant on both the text of Long Day's Journeyinto Night and the techniques of
Pirandello (197-98). Particularly irked by the excessive use of the mise-en-
abymetechnique, Michel Biron judged it predictable and empty (184). The
critics had been somewhat kinder to Jean-Franqois Caron's J'dcriraibient6t
une piecesur les negres which also dramatized the writing act, exploded the
conventions of realist theater, and multiplied identities and sets with
ludic and parodic auto-reflexivity.8 While Jean-Franqois Chassay found
the stage version of Caron's play at the Theatre de Quat'Sous in Septem-
ber 1989 melodramatic and full of cliches (199), the version published by
Les Herbes rouges was hailed as a must-read by Yves Dube (45) and
called impressive by Barbara McEwen (111). The American critic could
snidely observe that some members of the Quebec/Canadian drama es-
tablishment clearly prefer original Qu6bbcois works, written in Qu6bec
French, and firmly situated in the social-political climate of contemporary
Quebec. But is it a matter of cultural chauvinism?
The structure of Caron's play is even more complex than that of Legault's.
The action takes place simultaneously on four levels and is played out by
three sets of actors representing the main characters-only the writer pro-
tagonist is played by a single actor. While there is no indication of a multi-
plication of time periods, the ages of all three characters differ from level to
level. The published text explains that on the "Niveau realit6," we see the
playwright Danny Gaucher, his student girlfriend Edith Francoeur, and
playwright Henri Poisson; on the "Niveau theatre,"we see the novelist Gau-
cher, his actress girlfriend Francoeur,and the publisher Poisson; on the "Ni-
veau roman," Danny is a playwright turned garbageman, girlfriend Edith is
a nurse, and ex-professor Henri is Danny's uncle; the fourth level is in Dan-
ny Gaucher's head where, as he types at his desk, the fictional character Ba-
tard is evolving into Bastarache, a political prisoner. The detailed didascalia
explain that the boundaries that separate reality, theater, and novel are
fluid; the characters coexist in the same space. Although the reality-level
characters observe the theater and novel levels, the theater-level characters
can only watch the novel level, while the novel level protagonists are only
aware of their own existence. Caron's explanation is interesting:
Paradoxalement, et ce, meme si je nomme les niveaux tels que je les
nomme, le veritable niveau rdelest celui que j'appelle roman.C'est qu'il
contient la verite que cherche l'auteur dramatique, enfouie sous les cou-
ches de mensonges ou les masques qu'il faut soulever pour l'atteindre.
Ainsi, pourrait-on sentir les personnages plus thMatralises dans les ni-
veaux rdaliteet thMdtre et, pourquoi pas, plus vrais que nature dans le
niveau roman.(9)
Does Caron really mean to suggest that the playwright can only find truth
in the hyperreal zone of fiction? Is this use of metadrama a ludic critical
exercise?
POSTMODERNTHEATERIN QUEBEC 945
Brief resumes of the different levels will only reinforce the impression
that the main dramatic action is writing and the main subject is Quebec
literature. On the reality level, we see Danny Gaucher who, tired of being
a ghostwriter for the well-known playwright Henri Poisson, has written a
play which focuses on the young novelist, Gaucher, who has kidnapped
Poisson, the publisher who rejected his novel. The play-within-the play
shows us Gaucher reading his novel to the abducted editor, Poisson, who
is tied to a chair. The novel recounts how the visit of Uncle Henry, a radi-
cal separatist ex-professor, complicates the already difficult relationship
between Danny, a failed playwright who is making a living as a garbage
collector, and his girlfriend, Edith. Let me try to clarify: the reality charac-
ters read and comment on the play-within-the-play and occasionally on
the character of Batard who is being written into existence by Danny Gau-
cher at his typewriter; the theater characters read and discuss Gaucher's
novel and make a number of comments on contemporary Quebec and
Canadian literature; on the novel level, we see Danny and Edith's life dis-
turbed by the sudden intrusion of Uncle Henry and his radical politics on
Saint-Jean Baptiste Day. As Edith and Danny sort dirty laundry (how
banal! how symbolic!), Uncle Henry reminisces about his past political
activities, leading to the revelation that Batard, the character being typed
into literary existence by Danny Gaucher on the reality level, is based
upon an FLQ terrorist friend of Uncle Henry's named Bastarache (63). As
if the levels and genres were not confused enough, Batard/Bastarache
announces that he is writing a play in order to "Faire parler le monde,
comme s'il y avait en dedans de moi du monde autre que moi qui pouvait
parler"(91).
What should we make of a play that is a novel within a play within a
play, that narrates and criticizes its own action, that mocks the Quebec
theater's navel gazing and Quebec fiction's penchant for ugly images?
This type of metatheater is clearly more ambitious than anything we have
seen before. It is as if Caron is responding to Danny's question "C'est quoi
du theatre?" (54) by claiming an expanded definition. There are references
to contemporary writers (17, 21, 23), publishing houses ((92, 95), critics
(99), bookstores (99) and literary trends. There are comments on Quebec
theater (49, 71, 96-97, 100), the acting profession (97), and women's dra-
matic roles (72-74). There are lengthy discussions of the history of Que-
bec's struggle for sovereignty with precise allusions to FLQ (Front pour la
liberation du Quebec) bombings, Trudeau, the 1970 October Crisis, the
repatriation of the constitution, Meech Lake, the 1980 Referendum, and
Bill 101 (67-71, 86-88). There are allusions to the threat of ecological disas-
ters and the AIDS epidemic (109).
The multiplication of plots, characters, genres, and debate topics initial-
ly overwhelms the spectator or reader, but a closer look at the play sug-
gests that its real subject is the act of writing: that is, the way the writer
chooses his or her subject matter, the roles that autobiography and politics
946 FRENCHREVIEW

play, the psychic stress produced by having so many characters to trans-

late from mind to paper, the difficulty of finding a publisher, the trauma
of critical scrutiny, etc. The kidnapped editor's comments on writers at
the end of the play reinforce the play's message about the creative act:

J'ai d6cid6 de devenir 6diteur, parce que j'aime les 6crivains. J'aime les
cervelles d6traqu6es qui s'exorcisent en pattes de mouche. S'abandonner
comme un ecrivain s'abandonne en p6riode d'6criture, c'est comparable
a nul autre abandon que celui d'un d6linquant en plein d6lit. Je vous
connais, les 6crivains. Vous 6tes des casseurs de vitres. Des criminels de
haut-de-gamme ou de bas-fonds. Des dangereux qui, par hasard et par
miracle, ont requ une goutte de lumiere noire. Ils en ont fait une tache,
ont aim6 ca, et en ont voulu encore. L'action la plus d61inquanteque je
connaisse est celle d'6crire. (113)

Caron's comments in the "Saillie" that follows the published version of

the text suggest the dilemma faced by the generation of Quebec writers
that has come of age since the 1980 Referendum: born too late to be part of
the independence movement, feeling guilty about their political indiffer-
ence, tired of the obsessive individualism of the eighties and the aggressive
entrepreneurism of the new Quebec, they are searching for answers to the
timeless questions "Oihallons-nous? ... Que faisons-nous? ... Qui som-
mes-nous?" (127). According to drama critic Paul Lefebvre and playwright
Dominic Champagne, the creative artist-as-protagonist symbolizes post-
1980 Referendum Quebec in search of itself and its political future (127).
They suggest that artistic expression-as-subject-matter dominates Quebec
theater in the eighties and nineties because after the broken dream of sov-
ereignty, Quebec needs to believe that new dreams and new realities can
be invented. Gilles Deschatelets reasons that since theater mirrors society,
theater on theater (that is, metatheater) must be seen as a reflection of a
society questioning its own identity (62). Deschatelets asserts that auto-
reflexive theater is a sign of Quebec theater's maturity since its questioning
goes beyond the issue of national identity.
While agreeing with these critics, I would go on to add that these exam-
ples of metatheater from recent Quebec theater signal a postmodernist
inquiry into the nature of representation. These exploded plays are decon-
structions that reveal reality as unstable and objective representation as im-
possible. By showing us the writer in the act of writing what we are seeing
(or reading), the playwright exposes the work as a literary construct. By
placing the author and the text at the center of the play, these works not
only emphasize the textuality of theater, they also devalue the theatrical
illusion created by the actor's performance and provoke a more active
response from the spectator/reader. In the case of O'Neill, textuality is fur-
ther emphasized by the intertextuality of the play mise en abyme.In the case
of J'dcriraibient*t une piece sur les ngres, metatheatrical strategies have the
effect of distancing the playwright from autobiographical elements that are
POSTMODERNTHEATERIN QUEBEC 947

emotionallydistressing.In both works and in other works that theatrical-

ize the writing act, the playwrightasserts authorialpower over the mate-
rial as she/he constructsand deconstructsthe text at will. If we choose to
see this writer-as-protagonist motif in politicalterms,I would suggest that
while it representsQuebec'scurrentuncertaintyabout its politicalfuture,
it also suggests that the provincewill have the power to write its own sce-
nario.Just as the writer-protagonistsare empowered to write themselves
and theirown scripts,so Quebecmay write its own scenariofor the future.

COLBY COLLEGE

Notes

'The writer-as-protagonistis the focus of my article on feminist theater, "Creation

Reenacted:The WomanArtistas DramaticFigure,"TheAmericanReviewof CanadianStudies
15.3 (1985):263-72.
2Seemy articleon Chauretteand Dubois, "'StillCrazyafterall these years':The Uses of
Madnessin RecentQuebecTheater,"Canadian Literature118 (1988):34-45;and on homosex-
ual theater,"SexualGames:Hypertheatricality and Homosexualityin RecentQuebecPlays,"
TheAmerican Reviewof Canadian Studies17.3(1987):287-96.
3Otherplays featuring writers or actors in the process of creating include Reynald
Bouchard'sLeCrid'unclown(1986),Jeanne-ManceDelisle's Un Oiseauvivantdansla gueule
(1987),MichelTremblay'sLeVraiMonde?(1987),Michel-MarcBouchard'sLesFeluettesou la
rip'titiond'un drameromantique (1987)and LesMusesorphelines(1989),FranqoisCamirand
and RendRichardCyr's LaMagnifiqueAventurede Denis St-Onge(1988),LaurenceTardi's
Caryopse ou le Mondeentier(1989),NormandCanac-Marquis'sLesJumeauxd'Urantia(1990),
Teo Spychalski'sUn Bal nommeBalzac(1989),Dominic Champagne'sLa Repitition(1990),
Alain Fournier'sPetit Tchaikovski ou La Liquefaction
de la lumiere(1990),Michel Tremblay's
Nelligan(1990), Martin Faucher'sNathalieRacineTragidie:Andromaque Guimond,Comidie
Thidtre?(1990),Victor-L&vy Beaulieu's Sophieet Leon(1992),Michele Magny's Marina,le
dernierroseaux joues (1993),Normand Chaurette'sLePassagede l'Indiana(1996).See Paul
Lefebvre'slist (127).
4For a discussion of metatheater,see RichardHornby'sDrama,Metadrama, andPerception
(Lewisburg:BucknellUP, 1986);on Quebec postmodernismsee Janet M. Paterson'sMo-
mentspostmodernes dansle romanque'dcois(Ottawa:Pressesde l'Universited'Ottawa,1990);
on postmodern theater see Michael Vanden Heuvel's "ComplementarySpaces:Realism,
Performanceand a New Dialogicsof Theatre,"Theatre Journal44.1 (1992):47-58.
51t should be noted that Les HerbesRougesno longer publishestheatricalworks.
6Whileit is true that severalof the plays were successfullystaged in Montrealtheatersor
caf6-thatres, othershave yet to be presentedto the publicin full productions.
7Interestingly, a translationof O'Neill'splay, LeLongVoyageversla nuit,was performedat
the TheatrePortRoyalby the CompagnieJeanDuceppein November 1989.
sWhenI read an earlierversion of this paper at the Twentieth-CenturyFrenchStudies
Conferencein Boulder,Coloradoin March1993,ProfessorPhilip Solomon suggested that
the title of the play was perhapsa referenceto JeanGenet'splay LesNIgres.The comment
startledme becausethat possibilityhad never occurredto me. The meaningof nagresin the
contextof Caron'splay has little to do with race,but ratherrefersto Danny Gaucher'spro-
fession-ghostwriter. I have since discovered that a play entitled LeNIgreby Didier van
Cauwelaertwas successfullystaged in Parisin 1986.It is possible, I suppose, that Caronis
referringto the Frenchplay.
948 FRENCHREVIEW
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Biron,Michel."O'Neill."Jeu55 (juin1990):184.
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Chassay,Jean-Franqois. bient6tunepiecesurles negres,"Jeu57 (1990):199-200.
"J'dcrirai
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Moss,Jane."CreationReenacted:The WomanArtistas DramaticFigure.AmericanReviewof
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