Language histrionics

Théâtre Ste-Catherine’s Eric Amber and
les Sages Fous on rude e-mails, inflamed
passions and being an ass

PR OBVIOUSLY NOT HIS THING: Amber

by NEIL BOYCE

There’s a flyer taped to the wall in the third-floor office of Théâtre Ste-Catherine. A plain white piece of paper emblazoned with large black letters that circulated the previous Sunday when sovereignist group les Jeunes Patriotes were picketting outside. It reads: “Eric Amber: « P.S. Fuck you »”

Amber, founder and director of the theatre, breaks into a smile. “I love that one the best,” he says.

A couple of fleurs-de-lys flag stickers adorn the outside of the theatre now, but there’s little else to indicate the linguistic tempest that grew from a rude e-mail sent two weeks ago.

Responding to a request from Just for Laughs to e-mail out publicity for Zoofest shows at Théâtre Ste-Catherine, Amber cut and pasted blurbs for the acts—all of whom perform in English—into an e-mail and fired it off to a contact list with thousands of entries, including that of Trois Rivières puppet group les Sages Fous.

Receiving the English-only message from what they thought was the large Just for Laughs organization, Jacob Brindamour of les Sages Fous replied: “Merci de nous envoyer vos messages en français ou de nous retirer de votre liste d’envois.”

And then it turned bad.

Amber (who was born and spent his childhood in Quebec’s Beauce region) fired back, “The shows listed were in English and therefore so is the message. You obviously can’t read in English because you are an uneducated bigot. Est-ce que vous comprenez l’expression anglophone: Go Fuck Yourself?”

Certain it was some inexperienced employee who’d sent the message, South Miller, artistic director of les Sages Fous, phoned the theatre: “I said, ‘Our theatre company just got a very hateful e-mail and I need to make a complaint,’ and he hung up on me,” says Miller, uncertain of whom she spoke to.

Hackles raised, les Sages Fous sent their response—with Amber’s insulting e-mail—to the media. A blogger at La Presse published it, linking to Amber’s Facebook pages and the original e-mail exchange with the street address and phone number of the theatre. Attention quickly followed in blogs, newspapers and radio—and also an avalanche of hate mail to Amber, along with several death threats—culminating in the demo on Sunday, July 19.

Amber has since announced the theatre’s closing, published an apology and continues to goad les Sages Fous for what he sees as their role in escalating the incident: “I feel really bad that it became what it is,” says Amber. “It should just have been one jerk telling off another jerk.”

South says, “We weren’t protesting, we weren’t saying, ‘French only.’ There was no intention of provocation on our part.”

It’s a story with enough mud to cover all parties involved:

Amber, for being a dick several times over (are anger management classes on the horizon?). Les Sages Fous, for crying racist and exacting payback on the public stage. The media, for fanning the flames. And, most egregiously, the bloggers, hate-mail writers, zealots and rubberneckers who all piled on.

Latest word is the theatre will probably remain open, but Amber is considering bringing in help to run the place, including a publicist: “Because,” as he says, “It’s obviously not my thing.”

Sad but unrepentant over “l’affaire go-fuck-yourself,” Amber concluded in a recent missive, still firing wildly: “It is not against the law to tell someone to fuck off and it is not against the law to be or speak or write in English. Am I guilty of being a bit of an ass? Yes. Did I turn this whole thing into a national headline dividing Quebec into two camps ready for battle? No I did not.”