My Favourite Theatre Memory Marie Gignac, actress and co

My Favourite Theatre Memory
Marie Gignac, actress and co-artistic director
L’Homme rouge by Gilles Maheu
Marie Gignac, actress and co-artistic director of the Carrefour international du théâtre
de Québec.
A few days after I graduated from the Conservatoire, there was a festival in Québec
City called the AQJT festival and that’s where I saw Gilles Maheu on stage for the first
time. He was performing a one-man show that he had created, entitled L’Homme
rouge . It was a long time ago, but the memory of it is still very, very strong. I
remember, among other things, a scene where he was in a phone booth, his face stuck
up against the wall. It was a very strong image that somewhat illustrated the
character’s difficulty in expressing himself. I remember that I left the theatre in a state
of shock and I myself couldn’t talk for two days. I remember this with much emotion
even today, and I think that, at that moment, I really understood the power of theatre,
the power of images in the theatre; the sheer poetry and emotional charge that
theatre can contain and the effect it can produce on an audience.
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