CHOINIÈRE Olivier - Catalogue des traductions des membres du CEAD -

Olivier CHOINIÈRE

Since his graduation from the playwriting program at the National Theatre School of Canada in 1996, Olivier Choinière has written over a dozen scripts including Le bain des raines (nominated for a Governor General’s Award and read at Théâtre Ouvert, Paris in 1998); Autodafé (1999); and Venise-en-Québec (2006). In 2001 he was awarded the New Millennium Arts Fund by the Canada Council for the Arts. Choinière is also a translator. His translations include High Life by Lee Macdougall (nominated as "Best Translation" at the Soirée des Masques in 2006 in Montreal), Crestfall (awarded "Best Translation" at the Soirée des Masques, Howie the Rookie by Mark O’Rowe (nominated as "Best Translation"), and The Shape of a Girl by Joan MacLeod. His play Félicité, premiered at Théâtre La Licorne in 2007. Its English translation by Caryl Churchill, Bliss was produced in March 2008 at Royal Court Theatre in London. Choinière also creates site-specific theatre with his company L’ACTIVITÉ. Among some of his other projects, he has produced different theatrical walking tours : Beauté intérieure (2003), Ascension (2006), Vers solitaire (OUT) (2008), Marche sur ma tombe (2008) and Bienvenue à (une ville dont vous êtes le touriste) – presented in Montreal, Ottawa and Mulhouse (France). How it’s going is his first film.– 2009-01-13
(Photo : Mélissa Pietracupa)

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Titles in alphabetical order

Bliss

Jocelyne is Under a Cloud Today

Trains

Welcome to ... (a city where you are the tourist)


Welcome to ... (a city where you are the tourist)
	English translation by Maureen Labonté.
	Original title: Bienvenue à (une ville dont vous êtes le touriste)
Running time
	1 hour 50
Cast
	6 recorded voices (2 W and 4 Male or Female)
Synopsis
	You’re invited on an urban adventure, an audioguided tour designed for one person at a time. As you roam the streets, the pre-recorded human voice describes not the city you see before you, but the ghosts and memories of its past, its dreams and nightmares. Specializing in “recreo-tourism, Montreal-based ARGGL! makes you the spect-actor: the star of the moment, the participant in an unconventional journey scripted by Olivier Choinière.
Excerpt
	« GUIDE 30: > Continue to walk normally. \| Without looking back. \| Proceed. Straight ahead. \| Look \| at the cars driving by, at the buildings, \| as you pass them. \| Look at your feet as they touch the ground \| as they step over the cracks in the pavement. \| You walk along. \| Your pace is calm and regular. \| Lift your head. \| Breathe. \| There. \| You are present. \| In the moment. »


Bliss
	English translation by Caryl Churchill. Published by Nick Hern Books, London, 2008; get it through Playwrights Canada Press in Canada.
	Original title: Félicité (Dramaturges Éditeurs, 2007).
First production
	Royal Court Theatre, London, March 28th
Running time
	1 hour 10
Cast
	2 W, 2 M
Synopsis
	Welcome to Walmart. A cashier and her fellow workers flick through celebrity gossip magazines on a break. 'See You Later, Celine' says a headline. What's wrong with Celine? Why is she turning her back on her glamorous public life, her adoring fans? And how is her story connected to the story of an unknown woman on the facing page? It's not. Until Caro intervenes. This wild and slippery fantasy explores our insatiable appetite for private lives made public. It is a savagely surreal attack upon contemporary culture’s obsession with real-life tragedy and celebrity worship.
Excerpt
	« MANAGER: You're right – before that, she put her hand on her heart and said: 'Thank you,' but / without saying thank you / DISPLAY: WITHOUT saying thank you / MANAGER: Just mouthing the words 'Thank you' / DISPLAY: Yes, because people – COSMETICS: But she did end up saying saying 'Thank you,' I mean really / DISPLAY: But it took – That's why she said: 'Stop. It's too much.' / COSMETICS: YES, then after that: 'I love you lots!' – with her arm / DISPLAY: Then: 'I love you too,' because everyone was shouting: 'I LOVE YOU' / MANAGER : 'WE LOVE YOU, CÉLINE!' »
Press review
	« A small bombshell has arrived from Montreal: an attack by Olivier Choinière, translated by Caryl Churchill, on what Robert Hughes once termed "the psychotic cult of celebrity". […] when a card from a devout, bedridden fan, Isabelle, is smuggled into Celine's Las Vegas bedroom, we get a get a hideous glimpse of the cruel logic of celebrity-worship. Defined only by her relationship to Celine, Isabelle eventually becomes a living skeleton. Choinière pushes his argument to extremes but his point is entirely valid: that, by elevating fellow beings into secular icons, we destroy our sense of self. And, even if he doesn't analyse the source of our modern malaise, Choinière brilliantly describes its manifestations: one of the checkout staff treats the mere presence of the incognito Celine as a form of benediction. » Michael Billington, The Guardian, London, April 3, 2008 « A dark, powerful and unsettling play. […] A peek into the cult of celebrity » Sarah Hemming, FT.com Financial Times, London, April 6, 2008
Other translations
	Also available in German


Jocelyne is Under a Cloud Today
	English translation by Paula Wing.
	Original title: Jocelyne est en dépression (Dramaturges Éditeurs, 2002). This play was part of an exchange project "Transmisisons" and workshopped during CEAD’s Translation Residency, August-September 2002, in Orford. It was afterwards presented in a staged reading by Playwrights’s Workshop Montreal, November 28, 2003.
Running time
	2 hours
Cast
	4 W, 1 M and 1 voice (4W1M)
Synopsis
	The day got off to a rocky start and the weather only made it worse, so it’s no surprise that morale in general is at an all-time low. Thank God there’s Aline, television queen of national and international news, to cure our feeling of being fed up with winter, and its endless snow and freezing cold. Mind you, we have no idea what’s forecast for tomorrow. Jocelyne, our priestess of the rain and the sunny periods, isn’t here to tell us and her replacement tonight has everything except good news for us. A mock-Greek tragedy for the climatically challenged.
Excerpt
	« CHORUS OF OUR TIME : Oh damnéd snow! Oh damnéd cold! Oh goddamn winter! / ALINE : Blame the stars that cursed your birth! / CHORUS OF OUR TIME : In this piss poor country! In this piss-cutter of a temperature! Under this pissant cloud! / ALINE : Accuse what Richard called the season of his discontent! / CHORUS OF OUR TIME : Winter, wretched winter! Detestable winter! We're stuck in the anal canal of winter! »
Press review
	« Jocelyne* (…) shows, too, an even sharper focus by the author and a richness in his writing heretofore unseen. »* Gaëtan L. Charlebois, The Gazette, August 9, 2002.


Trains [YA]
	English translation by Bobby Theodore.
	Original title: Les trains ou J'entends grincer le vent sur les échangeurs d'air
Running time
	1 hour
Cast
	2 W, 1 M Target audience: 15 and up
Synopsis
	It's Elefpee's birthday, and of course he is typically late meeting up with his friends. It is a question of personal integrity. Emcee, alias Marie-Claude, despises her name and is carrying the heavy load of her father's suicide. Elvisse, who suffers from misery envy in her own ordinary trouble free life, will tonight witness the staggering proof of her own existence.
Excerpt
	« EMCEE : Sometimes, I'd like to be a plant. Have nothing to do except be a plant. Just be. Next to a window. Have nothing to do except be in the light. My only goal in life would be to have enough water. Not quite enough to grow but to continue being a plant. I think that would be totally great. That would be plenty. »
Press review
	"An existential drama which introduces us to three childhood friends who are torn between their inactivity and their desire to move." Patricia Belzil, Voir, March 15, 1999

PLAYS AVAILABLE AT CEAD (Some notes in French may appear below)
	Étude de gorges [2008] Jean dit [2008] Johny [2008] La tragédie grecque [2008] Œil [2008] Trou noir [2006] Bienvenue à (une ville dont vous êtes le touriste) [2005] Félicité [2004-2006] (Dramaturges Éditeurs, 2007) Beauté intérieure [2003] (suivi de Chien savant, Dramaturges Éditeurs, 2003 Jocelyne est en dépression [2002] (Dramaturges Éditeurs, 2002) Léa-Pu deSonlaté [YA] [2002] Venise-en-Québec, épopée touristique [2001] (Dramaturges Éditeurs, 2006) Tsé-tsé, tragédie ubiquiste de Léone Rivière-Coche, tirée du manuscrit retrouvé [2000] Autodafé, bûcher historique en cinq actes [1999] Le soldat de bois [1999] Chien savant [1998] (précédé de Beauté intérieure, Dramaturges Éditeurs, 2003) La légende du manuel sacré [1998], in collaboration with Huy-Phong Doàn Les trains ou J'entends grincer le vent sur les échangeurs d'air [YA] [1998] Agromorphobia, mélodrame végétarien de Elvire O'Connor, tiré du manuscrit retrouvé [1997] La fin de l'humanité est impossible, même chez le dernier des êtres humains [1997] Édouard ou La trahison mortelle [1996] Lady Percy's grande traîtrise [1996] (in 38 A, Dramaturges Éditeurs, 1996) Le bain des raines [1996] (Dramaturges Éditeurs, 1998) Les soeurs Dionne dans L'allégorie de la caverne [1996] Tragédie routière [1995]
TRANSLATIONS AND ADAPTATIONS
	Contes d'un Indien urbain [2006], translation of Tales of a Urban Indian by Darell Dennis Tête première [2005] by Mark O'Rowe Les points tournants, un road-movie sans entracte [2004-2006], translation of Passing Places, a road-movie for the stage by Stephen Greenhorn Cette fille-là [YA] [2002] (Dramaturges Éditeurs, 2007), translation of The Shape of a Girl by Joan MacLeod Howie le rookie [2002], translation of Howie the Rookie by Mark O'Rowe High life ou La course des chevaux fous dans les veines [2001], translation of High Life by Lee MacDougall Grease [1998], translation of Grease by Warren Casey, Jim Jacobs Road [1998], translation of Road (en anglais) by Jim Cartwright

PLAYS NOT YET TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH (Running time: 1 hour and more. Written and produced in French since 2000. Some notes in French may appear below)

Jean dit [2008]
First production in French: Dans Programme B, Festival Court-Toujours, Poitiers, France, June 2008
Running time: 20 minutes
Cast: 3 M
In a deserted parking lot, two policemen play a game in which a single man has the power of establishing rules. Who is this guy, anyway, this Jean, who gives orders to which one obeys until he gets to commit murder?

Johny [2008]
First production in French: Dans Programme A, Festival Court-Toujours, Poitiers, France, June 2008
Running time: 20 minutes
Cast: 1 W 2 M
Johny is at war. His wife is waiting for him. From one leave to another, their relation are getting more and more violent and signs of humanity disappear.

Œil [2008]
First production in French: Dans Programme A, Festival Court-Toujours, Poitiers, France, June 2008
Running time: 20 minutes
Cast: 1 M
A 12 year old child gives us his peculiar vision of the world. As he tells us how he has prepared himself for a game of marbles at school, reality mixes up with his fantasies or bizare fears. We get that all the violence of this adult to be is interiorized and ready to show itself.

Trou noir [2006]
First production in French: Dans Les Zurbains, Théâtre Le Clou, May 2006
Running time: 15 minutes
Cast: 1 M
A teenager, rejected by the other pupils of his school, takes great care of a zit he has on his nose for the reason the great Molière said once : " What we blame you for, cultivate it, for it is you." One day, the school's most beautiful girl invites him for a date. From now on, our guy believes everything possible, as in the bad films he watches with his friend Pogo. "

Beauté intérieure [2003]
Published by suivi de Chien savant, Dramaturges Éditeurs, 2003
First production in French: ARGGL!, July 2003
Running time: 1 hour 15
Cast: 1 M
Crapaud, on the verge of a breakdown, records an audiotape to tell us about his story, his life, his repulsive body, the disgust he sees in people's eyes when they look at him. The rejection of others and more particularly women.

Léa-Pu deSonlaté [Young Audiences - Children] [2002]
First production in French: Option-théâtre du collège Lionel-Groulx, March 2002
Running time: 1 hour 15
Cast: 10 W 6 M
Popeye, Momeye and the Heye family’s four children are desperate: the TV doesn’t make any sound! For an evening, they will lend their voices to the TV, and create the dialogues and music for each show. By giving a voice to something that lost it, they give it to themselves …

Venise-en-Québec, épopée touristique [2001]
Published by Dramaturges Éditeurs, 2006.
First production in French: Coproduction du Théâtre d'Aujourd'hui et du Théâtre du Grand Jour, April 2006
Running time: 2 hours 30
Cast: 3 W 9 M
A city man gets lost and ends up in Venise-en-Québec. For the locals, he represents indecision. Lost and confused, he has no idea that this small town is a growing nation, a future island that he will never leave. Thus, he has to learn everything and comply with the idea that we already are The Other.

Tsé-tsé, tragédie ubiquiste de Léone Rivière-Coche, tirée du manuscrit retrouvé [2000]
First production in French: ARGGL!, 2000
Running time: 1 hour 30
Cast: 1 W 2 M
In 1959, a scientist named André Delorme experiments teleportation of matter in his own basement laboratory, which leads to certain family inconveniences. For example, when he tries to teleport himself, a fly enters the pod with him and the scientist is transformed into an aggressive insect.