DUCEPPE OPENS DOORS TO YOUNG DYNAMIC DUO
New artistic co-directors bring fresh ideas while respecting the institution’s legacy
“Presently, the younger generation will come knocking at my door,” goes the famously ominous line from Ibsen’s The Master Builder. For Michel Dumont, who will be stepping down after 27 years as Théâtre JeanDuceppe’s artistic director, that day has come.
But rather than double-bolting the door, Dumont has enthusiastically opened it to his remarkably youthful successors, Jean-Simon Traversy and David Laurin, whose appointment as the theatre’s new artistic co-directors was announced three weeks ago. (They will officially take up their posts after the 2017-18 season ends next May.) Responding to an emailed question about what makes them the right men for the job, Dumont wrote they are “young, dynamic, sensitive, intelligent and respectful.”
The duo are co-founders and co-directors of LAB87, whose productions of spiky, urgent plays such as Tribes, Constellations and Scotstown have played at La Licorne as well as around Quebec. Dumont has joked their combined ages (Traversy is 31, Laurin 33) still leaves them a few years short of his own (he’s 76).
On the face of it, then, it’s a surprising, even revolutionary development for the Duceppe, which, over its almost 45-year history, has been a solid, some might say artistically conservative, mainstay of Montreal’s francophone theatre scene. But, as both incoming directors explained in separate phone conversations with the Montreal Gazette, their appointment is more a continuation of the Duceppe’s founding principles than a departure from them.
Referencing the duo’s enthusiasm for cutting-edge American and British plays, Laurin recalls how, during their pitch, they put the case that their vision of the Duceppe’s future dovetailed with its past. “What we said was that this should be the first place where these kinds of plays are put on. That’s one of the main reasons Jean Duceppe opened his theatre.”
“It’s been in the mission since the company started,” Traversy says. “Jean Duceppe opened with Death of a Salesman, which wasn’t so well known in Montreal in 1973, at least on the French side. And in his second year he brought in That Championship Season (an acclaimed state-ofthe-union play written by Jason Miller, best known for playing Father Karras in The Exorcist). He was really interested in contemporary writers, from New York especially.”
“One of my dreams would be to have a world première of an American or British playwright,” Laurin says. “We’ve been talking to some of them, and the door is open. It would be cool to bring the playwright here to Montreal.”
If that sounds like the kind of lofty promise we all make at job interviews, it should be noted Laurin has experience in making such things happen. Last year, having translated the play Farragut North (filmed as the George Clooney and Ryan Gosling vehicle The Ides of March), he invited its author, Beau Willimon, who also happens to be the creator and writer of Netflix’s House of Cards, to Quebec City to see the production. Willimon accepted and went on the Quebec media circuit to promote the show, and met the mayor of Quebec City.
Laurin and Traversy have worked extensively as translators for LAB87 and other companies, including the Duceppe. Both are well versed in spotting contemporary trends and sniffing out fresh new plays.
“Every morning we tell each other what’s going on and what we read the night before,” Laurin says. Traversy’s skills lie in directing, Laurin’s in acting (though he may be putting acting on hold once he begins at Duceppe).
Not surprisingly for such young directors, diversity is very much on their mind, which will come as refreshing news for those who feel Montreal’s francophone theatres have tended toward — how shall we put it? — a certain amount of foot-dragging in this respect.
To be fair to Dumont, the Duceppe has already made some moves toward amending this. Last year the theatre put on a production of David Mamet’s Race, which has an even distribution of black and white characters. The theatre recently took advantage of a Conseil des arts de Montréal initiative called DémART-Mtl, which enables cultural organizations to offer residencies to artists from diverse backgrounds (Moroccan-born actress Houda Rihani in this case). They also recently set up a theatre troupe called Laboratoire Duceppe in association with the organization Promis, which works with immigrants and refugees in the Côte-des-Neiges area.
Speaking of the need to represent diversity on the stage, Traversy says: “We have the ability to put this into action right now. We need to open our minds.”
Lots of challenges ahead, then — one of them being how to retain the Duceppe’s loyal, older audience while attracting younger theatregoers.
“They respect and understand what has always been the first mandate of Théâtre JeanDuceppe,” writes Dumont, “that it be accessible to all.”
As with LAB87, the Duceppe is “a theatre that gives priority to Anglo-Saxon drama, but which remains open to all kinds of drama and which nurtures Québécois work. I’m also convinced that my two successors will carry out a transition which is progressive and innovative.”
The first production of the 2017-18 season, the francophone version of the Australian play When the Rain Stops Falling, will provide a taster of their work.
A co-production between the Duceppe and LAB87, it’s been translated by Traversy, and Laurin will perform in it. The director will be their longtime associate Frédéric Blanchette, who also directed LAB87’s production of Tribes.
“Their main challenge over the next few years will be bringing in new drama, new voices,” Blanchette says, citing Tribes as a play that will bridge the gap between new and traditional. “It’s a challenging piece of work that brings a lot of intellectual questions about language and communication, but it’s also very crowd-pleasing.”
They will soon be getting down to the tricky business of planning Duceppe’s 2018-19 season. Recalling their pitch meeting with a committee that included Louise and Gilles Duceppe (daughter and son of the theatre’s founder), Traversy says: “It was a lot of fun. We approached it as an exercise: what would we do if we were the head of this huge theatre? So now we have the nice problem of making it all happen.”
News reached us on Friday morning that the previous evening’s performance of Harold et Maude at Théâtre Jean-Duceppe had to be halted after Béatrice Picard, who plays Maude, fell ill. We wish her a speedy recovery.
Continuing through Sunday is the Rose Festival, a showcase of new queer theatre writing named after late gay activist Joe Rose. Each evening will consist of three pieces, beginning at 6 p.m. and taking place in an “underground” space at 3655 St-Laurent Blvd., Suite 102. Details are sparse, but you can track down more information by emailing festivalrose@gmail.com.