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The Madonna Painter or The Birth of a Painting [2008] (Talonbooks, Vancouver: 2010) 16.95$
Création Factory Theatre, Toronto, 19 novembre 2009 Traducteur(s) Linda Gaboriau (Auteur féminin) Nombre de personnages 8 Personnage(s), 4 Femme(s), 4 Homme(s) |  |
Résumé It is the end of World War I. In order to protect his parish from the Spanish flu epidemic, a Quebecois village priest commissions a wandering Italian painter to create a fresco dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The arrival of the foreign artist, his search for a local beauty to serve as a model for the Madonna and the process of his work will upset the lives and change the fate of the entire village.
Plus d'informations »
- Décor: The action takes place in Saint-Coeur de Marie, Lac Saint-Jean, Québec. Fall 1918.
The playwright wishes to acknowledge the support of Ministère de la Culture du Québec,
Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, Ministère des relations internationales du
Québec, English Theatre of the National Arts Centre in Ottawa and l'Agence culturelle
du Québec in Rome.
The play was shortlisted for the 2004 Masque for best play of the year, awarded by
l'Académie québécoise du theatre.
This most recent version of the play was established by the author in collaboration with
his English-language translator, Linda Gaboriau, during a residency at the Banff
Playwrights Colony in Alberta (Canada) in May 2008.
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Author's note
The action takes place in a village that has the same name as my native village, but the
language of the play is not that of its inhabitants. My characters simply echo the medieval
beliefs that shaped their destiny until recently. They inspired this story, with their gossip
about the marital spats between God and Satan.
It was in Florence, the city of a thousand madonnas, that I wrote down this fable, loosely
inspired by the events surrounding the creation of the fresco that still adorns the nave of
the church in Saint-Coeur de Marie in the Lac Saint-Jean region of Québec. That fresco
depicting the Virgin Mary's ascension was my first encounter with art, with a foreigner
and with lies.
In order to portray that fresco, I became a liar and the people from my village became
saints and martyrs, artists and models, lovers and misanthropes. I presented their legends
the way a flea market hawker displays sacred objects that have been stolen and disguised
for resale.
The Madonna Painter or The Birth of a Painting is writ in scarlet pigments, in holy wine
and haemoglobin, all the shades of red that flow through us, from our sex to our souls. It
is a collision of ecstasies, a bouquet of lies disguised as a fable.
Michel Marc Bouchard
- Caractéristiques des personnages: Mary Frances, a young woman from the village
Mary Anne, a young woman from the village
Mary Louise, a young woman from the village
The Young Priest
The Doctor
Mary of the Secrets, a young woman from the village
Alessandro, the Italian Painter
Extrait « MARY OF THE SECRETS : I don't want to pose for him anymore. / YOUNG PRIEST : All the young women who wanted to play this role were terribly hurt when they weren't chosen. Show a bit of respect for them and their disappointment, and go back to the painter. / MARY OF THE SECRETS : He still hasn't done a single sketch of my face. I'm not a good model. / YOUNG PRIEST : Your humility is irritating. / MARY OF THE SECRETS : His eyes! You should see his eyes when he's drawing me. / YOUNG PRIEST : He is searching for something. I imagine that artists are always searching for something. »
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