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La Maison Rouge (English translation) [1999]
Nombre de personnages 4 Personnage(s), 3 Femme(s), 1 Homme(s), 4 Acteur(s) |  |
Original - Original en français par sous le titre de La maison rouge [1997]
- Théâtre du Coyote (Edmonton), 13 juin 1997
Résumé More dreamlike than realistic, the play introduces us to Rose and Rostand, sister and brother, reunited in their family home after a long absence. Their
mother is dying and the memory of Blanche, their sister who drowned 25 years earlier, haunts the surroundings and their memory.
Plus d'informations »
- Décor: Family ties... the ones we want, the ones we don't want.
The story unfolds in the family home, which embodies their past lives.
Rose and Rostand return to the family home after a 25 year absence. Their mother is dying. Blanche's spirit has come too; she drowned 25 years earlier. Rose, who stays at her mother's bedside, is desperately trying to share her secret. Rostand who never enters the house is waiting for Rose. He is struggling with the memory of Blanche's death.
Author's thoughts
Rose, Rostand, Blanche and their mother are bound by what was, or was not - memories, desires, impressions, emotions. The family should have a sense that they are physically connected, so when one moves the others are affected. Lighting and music also contributes to create this interdependence.
The music should convey those reminiscence, desires, impressions, emotions. It is the memories of the house, it is the voice of the objects, it is the pulse of the story. It announces, warns, accompanies sensations, emotions.
Movement is integral to the world of the play. As well as the text, the bodies are telling the story: the corporeal language of each character, the abstract movement with the poetic text, the dynamics with the symbolic objects.
The Mother's visitors are pairs of shoes, they are not a bodily presence. They are represented on stage by the physical handlings of the shoes and the family reactions. Rose is carrying a trunk for a suitcase, like a burden. The men, the five pairs of shoes are hidden in her trunk.
The empty bed is the “dying mother”; the absence of the mother in Rose's life, Rose desire and inability to connect with her mother. Rose sees the Mother only towards the end when she is facing her inner truth.
The first production of la Maison rouge helped me to clarify the visual world of the play. Those visual elements essential to the play became part of the written text. But I also want to share the images that did not end up in the text. They made organic sense in the first creation of the play; they are not meant as direction but more as inspirational material.
o La Maison rouge. Red is for shame, for silence. Blue atmosphere was prominent in the first production, the house surrounded with water, red came in patches - the Mother's red dress, the revolver wrapped in red cloth, Rose's red dress, the blood. The arrival of Rostand was marked by sharp red lighting. Red for real, en chair et en os, Rostand is staying outside of the house, he is carrying the line of the story.
o The window in the mother's bedroom was a suspended frame like an opening, a threshold. Rose and her mother had an active, physical relationship with it.
o An immense staircase in the middle of the house was the stage for Blanche's drowning. Her drowning was slow, we saw her loosing life while Rose struggled with her own violent memories. The stairs were also a dynamic element to connect the different levels of the house and also to connect the outside and the inside of the house.
o Rose and Rostand cross a bridge to get back to their family home, like there is a gap between the real world and the world of their childhood. We did not have a concrete bridge, this image was symbolic. Rose and Rostand entered from the audience.
Nota bene:
In an attempt to clarify the written text:
The text in the present is aligned on the left side of the page;
Memories, impressions, the ghostly presence of Blanche and the Mother are aligned further on the right
- Caractéristiques des personnages: ROSE : A Woman. 38 years.
ROSTAND : A Man, brother of Rose. 33 years.
BLANCHE : A soul/spirit, sister of Rose and Rostand.
THE MOTHER : Their mother.
THE HOUSE : A voice.
THE VISITORS : Five pairs of shoes.
Extrait « THE MOTHER : […] When I was very small, ma grand-maman, she tucked me in every night. […] she would tell me the story of la dame du lac […]. The lady of the lake appeared from out of the mists. She was all white, translucent. We heard her song, from far away, smooth like honey. (To herself.) Sometimes, it seemed that I was truly hearing her. » Revue de presse "An extraordinary piece of theatre...La Maison Rouge is
no mere spectacle, like Greek theatre, dilemma and
atrocity cross the barrier between actor and audience."
Norm Sacuta, Theatrewest, October - November, 1997
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