Description

IF THE POET PAUL ÉLUARD LISTS the different places of freedom, Jennifer Tremblay simply and cruelly depicts the day-to-day life of a woman who, through compulsive list-making, tries to reconstruct the order of events leading up to the death of Caroline, her neighbour and mother of five. She could have “maybe” prevented it. In La Liste, a woman questions her share of responsibility in this human drama.

A young Québec writer, Jennifer Tremblay received, among other prizes, the 2008 Governor General’s Award for this play, as well as the 2010 Michel-Tremblay Award. Delicately told, this moving story questions the agonies of human relations. The eminent Sylvie Drapeau brilliantly portrays a woman devastated by an unbearable daily existence.

An instant classic, La Liste has been unanimously embraced by the public and critics.

Biographies

• Biographies

• The actors

• The conceptors

Biographies

Playwright

Jennifer TREMBLAY

Jennifer Tremblay was born in 1973 in Forestville, on the north shore of the St. Lawrence. In 1990, she published a collection of poetry entitled Histoires de foudre. In 1995, she received her bachelor’s degree creative writing at the Université du Québec à Montréal and began publishing short stories and articles in various journals. She began a master’s degree in literary research devoted solely to the works of Dany Laferrière, but a long conversation with the writer encouraged her to leave her studies and concentrate on her own writing projects. She has written nearly a hundred episodes of the children’s show Les Chatouilles (Radio-Canada) and several episodes of Bouledogue Bazar. In 2004, she co-founded the publishing house Éditions de la Bagnole with Martin Larocque, going on to publish her first novel, Tout ce qui brille, and several children’s books: Un secret pour Matisse, Deux biscuits pour Sacha, Sacha et son Sushi, Miro et les canetons du lac Vert, Madame Zia, and Matisse et les vaches lunaires. In 2008, she received the Governor General’s Award for the theatrical monologue La Liste, published by Éditions de la Bagnole.

Director

Marie-Thérèse FORTIN

Marie-Thérèse Fortin is involved in several spheres of theatre.  Artistic director of Théâtre du Trident à Québec from 1997 to 2003, she has been at the helm of Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui since 2004. In theatre, she has appeared onstage in the title role of Elizabeth, roi d’Angleterre at Théâtre Nouvelle Monde (TMN), receiving the Gaston-Roux award for her performance. More recently, she has appeared in Belles-Sœurs, a musical adaptation of the Michel Tremblay play by René Richard Cyr and Daniel Bélanger. In Québec City, she has had principal roles in over fifty productions, including Les troyennes, Andromaque, Agnès de Dieu, Méphisto, Songe d’une nuit d’été, Les bonnes, Bousille et les justes, Les Belles-soeurs, Les Muses orphelines, Inventaire, Le Jeu de l’amour et du hasard, Le Malade imaginaire, and Lucky Lady. She has directed such plays as Des yeux de verre by Michel Marc Bouchard, Cocteau’s L’Aigle à deux têtes, Moulins à paroles by Alan Bennett, Michel Tremblay’s Anciennes odeurs, as well as La Liste. Marie-Thérèse can also be found on television. She was the Françoise in Le Monde de Charlotte and Un Monde à part. She was also in Casino I and II, Temps dur, Jack Carter, Cover Girl, 4 et demi, L’Officier de la garde, Blanche, and she is Madame Barbara, Sophie Paquin’s faithful assistant, in Les Hauts et les bas de Sophie Paquin. She has been seen onscreen in the films Sans elle and Sophie Lorain’s Les Grandes chaleurs. She received Gemini awards in 2001, 2002, and 2006, for her performance as Françoise Langevin in Le Monde de Charlotte and Un Monde à part. In 2001, she was awarded the Chevalier de l’Ordre des arts et des lettres, an honour bestowed by the government of France. In 2002, during a benefit gala organized by the YWCA of Québec, she was named woman of distinction, arts and culture category. Marie-Thérèse has for some years performed a show singing the songs of Barbara, which will be performed on May 11th at Alliance française de Toronto.

The actors

The Woman

Sylvie DRAPEAU

Consummate actor Sylvie Drapeau has acted in nearly fifty leading theatre roles over the past twenty-five years. Notable performances include La Voix humaine, Le Temps d’une vie, Elvire Jouvet 40, as well as the roles of Marie Curie and Lady Macbeth (Gascon-Roux award for outstanding performance, female, 2001). She has also been seen in Médée Matériau, L’Aigle à deux têtes, Reste avec moi ce soir, L’Imprésario de Smyrne, Marie Stuart, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Last year alone, she appeared in L’Effet des rayons gamma sur les vieux garçons, Un Tramway nommé désir, Chambre(s), Et Vian ! dans la gueule, and Piaf. She co-wrote and acted with Isabelle Vincent in Avaler la mer et les poissons, which toured Québec. She won renown on television as Denise Pelletier in the series Jean Duceppe. In film, she has delighted audiences in 15 février 1839 (Pierre Falardeau), receiving the Jutra Award for Best Supporting Actress, 2002; Le Piège d’Issoudun (Micheline Lanctôt, receiving a Jutra nomination for Best Actress, 2004; Les Fantômes des trois Madeleine (Guylaine Dionne); and recently, in Borderline (Lyne Charlebois).

The conceptors

Assistant director and stage management

Stéphanie CAPISTRAN-LALONDE

Since graduating from the National Theatre School, Stéphanie Capistran-Lalonde has worked as assistant director and stage manager for several shows, mostly new works, with directors Marie-Thérèse Fortin, Geoffrey Gaquère, Claude Poissant, Martin Faucher, Éric Jean, Olivier Kemeid, Jean-Frédérique Messier, Gervais Gaudreault, Louise Marleau, Daniel Brière, Arianna Bardesono, and Denise Guilbault. She co-founded the company Trois Tristes Tigres, co-designing and stage managing many of its productions, including Cabarets CLIM, Les Lettres arabes, and L’Énéide. She has worked on the scripts of contemporary playwrights such as Fanny Britt, Emmanuelle Jimenez, Jennifer Tremblay, Olivier Kemeid, Olivier Choinière, Michel-Marc Bouchard, Larry Tremblay, Alexis Martin, François Godin, Suzanne Lebeau, and Lise Vaillancourt. In dance, she was part of the creative team behind Trois territoires quotidiens by Estelle Clareton, Harold Rhéaume, and Catherine Lafrenière at l’Agora de la danse. She works also as a production manager.

Lighting

Claude COURNOYER

A graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada, Claude Coumoyer is distinguished in several of the performing arts. For theatre, he works regularly with Brigitte Haentjens for her company Sibyllines: Woyzeck by Georg Büchner, Vivre by Brigitte Haentjens after Virginia Woolf, Tout comme elle by Louise Dupré, Médée-matériaux by Heiner Müller, and La Cloche de verre by Sylvia Plath, presented by Théâtre de Quat’Sous. For Quat’Sous, he has also designed the lighting for Mort de peine by Yvan Bienvenue, directed by Louis Bélanger; La Hache, written and directed by Larry Tremblay; and Comme en Alaska by Harold Pinter, directed by Estelle Clareton. At Théâtre Duceppe, he has designed the lighting for La Leçon d’histoire by Alan Bennett, directed by Serge Denoncourt and at TNM, he was designer for Le Dieu du carnage by Yasmina Reza,Huis clos de Jean-Paul Sartre, La Petite pièce en haut de l’escalier by Carole Fréchette, and Antigone by Sophocles. The latter was directed by Lorraine Pintal, for whom he also designed the lighting for the Alban Berg opera Woyzeck conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. This Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui production of Jennifer Tremblay’s La Liste is one of his most recent lighting designs for the stage. In the variety arena, he has designed the lighting for comedy shows by Dorice Simon, André Sauvé, Denis Drolet, Jean-François Mercier, Jean-Thomas Jobin, Louis-José Houde, Patrick Groulx, Sylvain Larocque, Alex Perron, as well as singer Lynda Lemay’s folk opera Un Éternel hiver. He has also designed the lighting for several performances at the Festival international de littérature as well as for the ultra-hip Festival Voix d’Amériques. His current projects for the 2011-2012 season include humorist Pierre Hébert’s latest show, as well as some new theatre pieces: Cantate de guerre by Larry Tremblay, directed by Martine Beaulne at Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui and the upcoming new work by the Éternels Pigistes, directed by Marie-Charlebois, which will be presented at La Licorne later in 2012.

Props

Julie MEASROCH

Since completing her training in stage design at the École de Théâtre à Sainte-Thérèse in 2005, Julie Measroch has worked with various companies, as set designer for Simoniaques Théâtre (Soupers), Théâtre Abé Carré Cé Carré (Chroniques), Le Trunk Collectif (Traffik femmes), Théâtre Advienne que pourra); doing props (Le Dieu du carnage, Le Blues de la métropole, La Liste, Rêvez montagnes!), and as a technician for several theatre, film, and television projects.

Photos

Video

Press kit

Critiques

The List — running February 29 - March 4, 2012

"Ms. Drapeau is a tour de force in the production" Read the review.
Keira GRANT, Mooney on Theatre

"A beautifully controlled, physical and incredibly moving performance that is at times darkly funny" Read the review.
Adèle CHARLEBOIS, The Charlebois Post

The Blog