La robe de ma mère ang.indd

The story
Two men on the beach. The weather is beautiful, it is hot, the sun is at its highest point and each one is there, because
he has a rendez-vous with a lady who...does not arrive. During this unexcepted wait, a dialogue begins between them
to pass the time. But, slowly, every day small talk gives way to mysterious connivance. Once polite conversation turns
into witty remarks, uneasy silences into smiles of complicity and handshakes into child’s play, we discover that the two
men are not the strangers that we might have thought at the beginning.
With a rhythmic and thrifty language, this dialogue, ponctuated by the presence of a singer, unfurls for us in finesse,
with little sensitive and evocative touches. With simplicity and humor, the author Serge Marois calls onstage two
brothers united by the ethereal memory of a mother whose dress, with an immaterial appearance, modifies itself with
time as well as with seasons. Throughout their games and little childhood rituals, Emile and Gaston invite us to go back
in time in their mother’s history. In this quest of memories, half way between reality and fantasy, they will unveil their
ties, forged within the maternal womb, their twinship.
In this soft and luminous text, the author tears down, with ingenuity, the false pretences of adulthood to expose in
bright daylight, the part of childhood always alive in each of us.
Show created on November 16, 2008 at the Centre culturel de Beloeil
A handbook and workshops about the show are available
Show for 6 years old and over
Gauge for school performances: 200
Gauge for general public performances: 200
Duration : 45 min
L ’ A rr i è re S c è n e C e n t re d ra m at i q u e p o u r l ’ e n f a n c e e t l a j e u n e s s e e n M o n t é r é g i e
A word from the author, Serge Marois
For this production, I was inspired by this figurehead of childhood, the Mother, reassuring, mythic,
mysterious and sometimes even larger than life. For the first time, I was inspired by my family and
my own chilhood memories. Without being nostalgic, I wanted to find an intimate look that could
rise above generations and time and on which I could superimpose my concerns as an author.
I chose to present two brothers and their mother. Both brothers have fun reliving their childhood
with their mother, playing at romancing their mother’s past, her life before they were born. Through
this game, I wanted people to discover little by little the ties that unite these brothers, their
likeness and their differences, so that they can slowly unveil their inherent nature to the spectator. I enjoyed writing a
story which looks like an emotional thriller, a story that does not always lead us where we expect it and which feeds the
doubts on the identity of the characters. I chose to write short phrase dialogues with certain words that go back and
forth from one character to the other as an echo to which each adds its note. In the midst of their reunion, the two-voice
partition between the brothers is a tribute full of softness and tenderness to this important woman who accompanies us
all through our lives, whether she is alive or dead.
About the author
Author, director, co-founder of the Arabesque and founder and artistic director of L’ Arrière Scène since 1976, Serge
Marois came to the theater via poetry, dance and visual arts. In forty-one years, Serge Marois created forty two shows
for youth as well as adult public. His award-winning productions allowed his company to receive many invitations from
foreign countries. His directing work for Pacamambo, by Wajdi Mouawad, was rewarded when he won the “masque
pour la production jeune public 2002” awarded by the Académie québécoise du théâtre. He signed off the mise en
scène for Sébastien Harrisson’s play Stanislas Walter LeGrand in 2007. Some of his works as an author include Mon ami
s’appelle Traguille, Les boîtes, Train de nuit, Côté Cour, Monsieur Léon, Le Jardin des songes and Les Âmes Soeurs. La robe de
ma mère is his twenty-seventh dramatic work.
L ’ A rr i è re S c è n e C e n t re d ra m at i q u e p o u r l ’ e n f a n c e e t l a j e u n e s s e e n M o n t é r é g i e
A word from the director, Sylviane Fortuny
The first time I saw « La robe de ma mère », I was overcome by a very peculiar sensation,
something elusive, buried in childhood memories, something appealing that I would call « the
lightness of being in my mother’s dresses ». And then, I loved the story of the reunion
between two brothers. Through this precise and humorous dialogue, Serge Marois dares to
speak of two men who let go of their prudery as two clowns would, to hand us that part of
childhood that is the intimacy of the relationship with the mother.
Right away, I imagined the beach with bright colored parasols as small theaters, small circus as shelters for the two
brothers replaying the memories, constructing new games and finally recognizing each other.
And the dress? Obsessing, intangible, present as the air we breathe, she will secretly wrap the third player of this play:
the singer. The singer: little angel, smart and sympathetic with her grand airs and her little songs, her voice will echo
the two men’s memories and will help them to rewind time.
After welcoming and defending in Quebec the productions that I directed with the company Pour Ainsi Dire, here is a
collaboration which goes further yet in the complicity that Serge and I have developed over the years.
About the director
Sylviane Fortuny discovers theater for young audiences in 1986, at the Théâtre de Sartrouville (Heyoka) with Kim
Vinter and Bernard Sultan, for whom she works first as a puppet handler and then as a comedian.
In 1994, she meets Philippe Dorin with whom she invents creative writing workshops in which plastic arts hold an
important place. Together, they founded the Compagnie Pour Ainsi Dire where she becomes the director and scenic
artist for the productions. They produced five creations: Le monde, point à la ligne, 1997 (rerun in 2006), En attendant le
Petit Poucet, 1999, Dans ma maison de papier, j’ai des poèmes sur le feu, 2001, Ils se marièrent et eurent beaucoup... in 2004 and
L’hiver, quatre chiens mordent mes pieds et mes mains, created in January 2008 and received the Molière of the public young
spectacle.
She also directs performances for other companies: Françoise Pillet and Joël da Silva for Émile et Angèle – correspondance,
and Joëlle Rouland for L’envolé.
Sylviane Fortuny presented the play Ils se marièrent et eurent beaucoup... in April 2007 for L’Arrière Scène and gave
workshops in schools located in the Beloeil area.
L ’ A rr i è re S c è n e C e n t re d ra m at i q u e p o u r l ’ e n f a n c e e t l a j e u n e s s e e n M o n t é r é g i e
The compagny
L’Arrière Scène, Centre dramatique pour l’enfance et la jeunesse en Montérégie
Since 1976, L’Arrière Scène offers numerous and diverse activities to initiate children to theatre. As a major specialized
theatre centre, L’Arrière Scène is recognized for its high quality productions, its education workshops, its artistic
residencies as well as for the daring theatre programming it presents each season at the Beloeil Cultural Centre to the
children and teenagers of its local community.
As L’Arrière Scène’s cofounder and artistic director, Serge Marois has developed through the years a rigorous method
mostly influenced by visual arts and contemporary dance, that emphasizes metaphor and dares to be poetic. Marois
presents environments where many artistic vocabularies come together, combining images, music, movement and writing.
The audience is thus invited to approach the universe with an open mind, involving each individual’s own emotions and
cultivating his/her taste for the fine arts. Marois’s work has been presented in Canada and on the international scene.
L’Arrière Scène Centre dramatique pour l’enfance et la jeunesse en Montérégie
Centre culturel de Beloeil, C.P. 329 Beloeil, (Québec) Canada J3G 5S9
Phone : (450) 467 - 4504
Fax : (450) 467 - 4562
www.arrierescene.qc.ca
Serge Marois
Artistic Director
[email protected]
(450) 467- 4504 poste 33
International development
Pierre Tremblay et Mona Cyr,
[email protected]
[email protected]
(450) 467 - 4504 poste 32 and 37
Jean-Luc Jamet, Agent in France
[email protected]
09 75 37 33 14
L ’ A rr i è re S c è n e C e n t re d ra m at i q u e p o u r l ’ e n f a n c e e t l a j e u n e s s e e n M o n t é r é g i e