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Caught stealing >> Michel Tremblay's Le Vrai monde? explores the playwright as thief by AMY BARRATT
But the opening night crowd at Michel Tremblay's Le Vrai monde?--spoiled perhaps by the extraordinary season Théâtre du Rideau Vert is having--remained seated. They did, however, show their appreciation by way of five curtain calls. Le Vrai monde?, originally produced in 1987, is a perfect complement to Encore une fois, si vous le permettez, which opened TRV's 50th-anniversary season. Both plays feature a mother and son who share a love of culture, although Le Vrai monde?, like Bonjour, là, bonjour, also deals with a son's thwarted love for his unapproachable father. To see this work, about a young playwright just starting out, presented on the stage where Tremblay made his professional debut... well, it's just too perfect. Le Vrai monde? addresses the issue of "stealing" from real life, as all playwrights, indeed all writers, do. The question is not so much whether it's possible to be truthful--the playwright knows that he can never present The Truth, only his own version of it--but whether the "systematic looting" of the lives of others (particularly family members) is fair. In Le Vrai monde?, 21-year-old Claude has written his first play, and gives it to his mother, Madeleine, to read. He is unprepared for the hurt and anger his words provoke in her. Silly boy: he should have at least changed the names of his overbearing father, long-suffering mother and fucked-up sister. Madeleine also accuses Claude of cowardice for not including a version of himself in the play. While the conflict with his "real life" family unfolds, the characters from Claude's manuscript also drift onto the stage, playing out the scenes he has written. It's a classic Tremblay trick that's handled beautifully by director Martine Beaulne and set designer Richard Lacroix. The main playing area, downstage, is mirrored by a second, further back and raised by a flight of stairs. Had the director confined one group of actors to the second space, obscured as it is by pillars and parts of walls, it would have been disastrous. She wisely limits the action that takes place back there, using it more as a threshold to the main playing area where the two sets of actors intermingle without ever interacting. Following her appearance in the return engagement of Grace et Gloria in December, the magnificent Linda Sorgini is back on the TRV boards as Madeleine 1, the "real" mother who is so devastated by her son's creation. Although it seems a little early for the luminous Sorgini to be taking on frumpy mother roles, she does so here with complete believability. Maude Guérin (of Motel Hélène fame) as the sister, Mariette 1, proves once again that she can play cheap trailer trash like no one else. The weak link in the cast is, unfortunately, Serge Mandeville, as the young playwright. His Claude is a brooding, pouting adolescent. Although we can see that he has suffered at the hands of his family, we get tired of hearing him whine about it. Whereas Sorgini's pain as the mother is excruciatingly obvious behind her pursed lips, Mandeville's is lost behind his sneer. Even so, Le Vrai monde? is vintage Tremblay and probably one of the best productions we'll see this season.
Le Vrai monde? to April 3,
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I never thought I'd see Montreal audiences getting stingy with their standing ovations. Time was theatre-goers would leap to their feet to applaud even the worst piece of dreck.