A family affair

>> Michel Tremblay’s L’État des lieux examines the arts in Quebec

by AMY BARRATT

A new Michel Tremblay play is never just another new play—it is an event that sends ripples throughout the cultural community. No wonder there was so much excitement leading up to last week’s opening of L’État des lieux at TNM, and among the many artists and journalists present at the premiere itself.
Like so much of Tremblay’s work, this new piece focuses on women, in this case, three generations of a family. The centre spot is reserved for Marthe Turgeon’s opera diva; known as Patricia Pasquetti to her fans in Europe, she’s Patsy Paquette to her friends back home.

As much as one with an innately dramatic nature can ever be said to hide out, Patricia is hiding out in her Montreal pied-à-terre following an unfortunate vocal “couac” during a performance of Salomé at the Opéra Bastille in Paris. She is joined by her daughter, Michelle (Kathleen Fortin), a young École National de Théâtre-trained actress who is making a career for herself in Montreal theatre and TV, and asks for no more. For Patricia, Quebec is a land of “nobodies” and no stardom short of the international variety is worth having.
In a visual twist that flouts our expectations about opera singers, Turgeon’s Patricia is tiny, thin as a chain-smoker in her tailored black suit, while Fortin’s Michelle is the zaftig one, with a moon face that reads all the way to the back row: Chastity to Turgeon’s Cher.
Neither Michelle, constantly folding her arms over her pillowy bosom, nor Patricia, with her exaggerated gestures, is comfortable in her own skin. That role is left up to a late arrival on the scene, Patricia’s own formidable mother, Estelle, played by the wonderful Rita Lafontaine.

Not that Estelle isn’t, like her daughter, constantly performing, but while Patricia’s act is a survival mechanism, Estelle’s is pure fun. She likes putting on a show, onstage or off, and she honestly doesn’t care what anyone thinks of her. Estelle too is a comédienne, well-known and well-loved in Quebec, if not beyond its borders. She is also the link in this play to the “old” Tremblay of Les Belles Soeurs and Marie-Lou, the only person onstage who could conceivably have grown up on rue Fabre.

The three women engage in debates about art and politics that are obviously not coming up for the first time among them. Patricia dismisses Quebec culture and artists as “provincial,” while the others argue that the price of international success is too high: having to give up your name, your accent, to please “them.”

The main action all takes place in Patricia’s scarlet livingroom, designed by Danièle Lévesque and operatically lit by Michel Beaulieu. The play is mostly talk, little action, but since it’s Tremblay talk it’s never boring. You do, at a certain point, begin to wonder where the play is heading. And then, almost before you know it, it’s over, and you’re wishing you felt more moved by it. Patricia has all the makings of a tragic heroine, but she doesn’t get there in this production. Maybe that’s intentional, since the play is advertised as a “dramatic comedy,” but under the direction of Tremblay accomplice André Brassard, L’État des lieux left me feeling strangely empty, despite the glorious writing and at least one inspired performance (Lafontaine’s). :

At TNM through May 23