Envy economy on display in Les Bellesoeurs
Biting social commentary and humour of female ensemble piece still relevant now
Set during Quebec’s Quiet Revolution, Michel Tremblay ’s 1965 play Les Belle-soeurs comes to us from another world. But it’s far from being a relic, says director Diane Brown.
“One of the reasons we’re producing it is because it’s not a relic,” she said. “It’s extremely relevant.”
The play premiered in 1968 to much controversy “both because of style and content,” Brown said.
“It puts 15 working-class women onstage complaining quite bitterly about their working-class Canadian lives. It premiered on uppermiddle-class stages. And they (the characters) used joual, Quebec working-class dialect. That was part of the uproar. But it was also that these women were getting a voice.”
In the play, Germaine Lauzon, a Montreal housewife, earns one million GoldStar stamps to purchase a variety of items from a company’s catalogue. She calls on some friends and acquaintances to help her put the stamps in the stamp-books, but the party degenerates from complaints about common problems to insults and treachery.
The Ruby Slippers production stars Melissa Oei, France Perres, and Agnes Tong, along with 12 other actors, ranging in ages from their 20s to 60s.
“It was a real challenge,” Brown said of casting.
“I did three solid days of auditions. So many people wanted to be in it. It’s an iconic piece, with so many well-written roles for women.”
The opportunity for a large cast of women was one reason to produce the play. Another reason was that it’s the 50th anniversary of the premiere of what many regard as a Canadian classic. And this production marks what Brown calls “the Metro Vancouver professional premiere of the English-language version.”
“It’s been done in French, and it’s been done in English in other parts of Canada, but it has never been done in English in Metro Vancouver. And as far as I know it’s never been done professionally on the West Coast in English.”
In addition to the large cast, Vancouver choreographer Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg has been brought in as a “movement coach.”
“This piece flips between naturalism and a representational style,” Brown said. “We’re taking artistic liberties and doing some choreography with the cast. There’s a lot of choral speaking and direct address in the play too. There’s a real musicality to Tremblay’s writing, and we’re trying to honour that. It’s really an oratorio for 15 women.”
Finally, though, it’s the way that the play speaks across the decades to modern audiences that attracted Brown, who is artistic director of Ruby Slippers.
“Then, it was a critique of the English elite and the Catholic Church,” said Brown, who did her thesis on the play.
“Now I think it’s a broader critique of living in a capitalist culture that is an envy economy, where you compare yourself to others and if you don’t have more than your neighbour then you try to tear them down. It’s not a rugged individualist philosophy. It’s a philosophy of how you compare yourself in relationship to others. Modern economic theory talks about the envy-economy. I think Tremblay has the perfect play here.”
The opportunity for more than a dozen women to share the stage might strike modern audiences as empowering. But there’s a catch.
“One thing that I find interesting about the play, which is kind of a 1960s hangover, is that these women don’t have the awareness of their own collective power,” Brown said.
“They think they’re all in an individual boat, they don’t see the sameness.
“That’s the hope — you kind of wish they would. But they’re so trapped in their own little silos of hopelessness and routine, and they’re worn down by their lives. You can have 15 women complaining onstage and think it’s a revolution, but it isn’t until they realize their collective power.”