Couldn’t fit the entire St. Lawrence into a box of a few square feet? Yet this is what is happening at the Center du Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui, when the river is the heart and soul of a show of great beauty, carried by a breath that one would think came from the open sea. .
For Les Filles du Saint-Laurent, playwright Rébecca Déraspe (in collaboration with Annick Lefebvre) composed nothing less than a maritime symphony for 10 voices. Here, the fates of eight women and one man are changed by the river itself (played by Elkahna Talbi). Or more precisely by the discovery of corpses spat out by this same river.
From Coteau-du-Lac to Blanc-Sablon, from Rimouski to Grandes-Bergeronnes, these corpses swollen with salt water act like electroshocks on those who have found them during a run or a kiss. The backlash is inevitable. There will be a before and after for Dora the journalist, Lili the deliciously quirky student, her roommate Charlotte, Mathilde who yearns for her children and all the others.
Rébecca Déraspe has used all the effervescence of her writing to paint portraits full of tenderness of these drifting characters. Humor is always within reach, but it never eclipses the small and the big dramas that are played out on the banks of this sometimes lulling and nurturing river, sometimes deceitful and cruel. We feel it, the author who grew up on the shores of the St. Lawrence loves the river as much as she fears it…
In the staging, Alexia Bürger manages to lead us on with nothing more than microphones, some lighting effects and sound effects that are genius. On this bare stage, the water is heard more than it is seen. It gurgles, it splashes, it sparkles. The ice creams crash together. These noises testify in homeopathic doses to all the moods of the St. Lawrence.
The process might seem repetitive; on the contrary, it is almost hypnotizing. It’s a real ballet that plays out in front of us, recalling the tireless comings and goings of the tides.
The 10 actresses (the feminine prevails here over the masculine, while Ariel Ifergan is the only man in the group) carry this text with remarkable ease, which seems to have been cut precisely for each of them. None stands out, because all are excellent. We will therefore have to name them all, because they succeed in moving us, making us laugh and transporting us without flinching for almost two hours: Zoé Boudou, Annie Darisse, Marie-Thérèse Fortin, Louise Laprade, Gabrielle Lessard, Émilie Monnet, Elkahna Talbi, Catherine Trudeau, and Tatiana Zinga Botao.
And when the final scene arrives and the identity of the corpses is finally revealed, water gushes out on stage while droplets form in the corners of the spectators’ eyes. This spectacle of great humanity and undeniable grace deserved this finale, touching as possible. A real balm for the soul.