In the spring of 2023, Marie-Laurence Rancourt successfully created the first solo piece. For adventure designers Listening emotion will serve as a “springboard to questions and slightly different theater research” in his new work. “ A woman’s life it takes up in certain aspects, perhaps in an even more eccentric way, the question of desire, but in fact it also goes elsewhere,” he explains. And further. The author and director reunited with Larissa Corriveau, joined by other fine artists: Annick Bergeron, Martine Francke, Maxim Gaudette, Roger La Rue.
Also created on Espace Go, A woman’s life was born from an accumulation of readings, “dialogues with literature, with cinema, which met certain more personal questions that I ask myself,” explains Rancourt. She was drawn into a series of stories “where women disappeared, sometimes in a somewhat metaphorical way, from their own lives. That is, forms of escape, new beginnings, (ways) to become something else, to be called by another life. This is an interesting question not only for women, but for all of us. Is it not the ultimate act of freedom that we can transform ourselves in the course of life and be accepted by others in our gesture of transformation? »
The author, obviously very well-read, mainly cites autofiction Autobiography in motion Deborah Levy, where the English writer writes that “female characters are often presented without desire, which is a form of disappearance for women”. And she borrowed this question from him: “Can we love a woman or a man who goes into the world with his own desires? »
Thus, Marie-Laurence Rancourt’s work, constructed in the form of a mosaic, offers variations around this big question. “Is it possible to reconcile your desires with reality? My characters are confronted with a reality that remains mysterious to them and which they try to make sense of, or they try to transform, to follow their desires. And sometimes reality defies them, sometimes gives way to them. So these are also little stories of emancipation. But they don’t always succeed. This mosaic is also a portrait of how difficult it is to give up playing certain roles, to be (alone) in the world, to assert who we really think we are and to reconcile all his desires with the reality that is often presented in the form of evidence. What I am also trying to do with this work is to talk about a different form of reality than the one that is always presented as THAT reality. It’s quite a mysterious piece in the form of magical realism. It’s also a way of saying that reality is never just what we’re told it is, it’s also a lot of fantasy and imagination. »
Rather than pit imagination against reality, A woman’s life he joins the two together “on a kind of equal footing”. The show concretizes what is related to dreams, desire, states such as the feeling of invisibility or the thirst for escape, in scenes that have the appearance of reality. And he transforms concepts fueled mainly by philosophy into accessible stories. “My desire from the beginning was to transform abstract ideas into very concrete, very clear situations that would allow us to experience that idea or experience a sensation,” explains the designer. All through “simple language that uses very familiar terms.”
And not without humor, with some even absurd situations. “There’s a slightly Kafkaesque side to it,” notes the author. In Kafka, reality resembles ours, but there is something a little ambiguous about it. And we accept this reality. That’s what I wanted to do with it A woman’s life. It is a reality that is similar to our own, but with which we feel a little at odds. And my wish is for that reality to become ours for the rest of the show, so we get into that. We always have one foot in reality—which is still an accumulation of fictions—but we oscillate between them. »
And as the artist reminds us, reality is already strange and confusing.
Role
All named Marie, “each as a possible woman’s life among other things”, the twelve heroines struggle with a life they no longer want and yearn to start anew. These Maries have a “desire to move and take the risk of change, for better or for worse. It tries to free itself, but also to exist, to step out of invisibility.” The creator, herself a graduate of anthropology and sociology, who then jumped into radio documentaries before coming to the theater – fields that “feed off and resonate with each other” – but she knows that it is not “so easy”. change location or try something else. But it seems to me that it is precisely in these movements, these bifurcations that there is life. I don’t have to confuse my world with the world, so always step out of it a little.’
Having the impression that “we don’t fit perfectly into reality” is a fairly widespread feeling among people, believes Marie-Laurence Rancourt. “It’s hard to be free in a world where there are many orders to meet expectations, to conform. »And in order to live there, we have to take on many roles. “What is left of you when you leave the roles you play? IN A woman’s lifethere is a reflection on the theater because it is a beautiful place to think about these roles. It runs through the room: the question of self-representation, transformation. And I also do theater to challenge the artistic medium itself. »
An admirer of the French director Joël Pommerat, with her second play, which is not only carried by language, she approached her desire: to write a series. “Often when we talk about theater we think a lot about the text. Again, it’s a bit “text-centric”. But creating a performance, for which I also direct, allows us to give up certain words in order to convey meaning through other elements: gaze direction, silence, attitude, sound. » The show taking place on the “big stage of our imagination”, where each audience will be able to project their own, is especially supported by a very present sound environment – and Mehdi Cayenne’s music.
A woman’s life it also carries the idea that we cannot really know people, what is inside them. A seductive secret for designers. “The theater is an extremely mysterious place for me. Magical but mysterious. I feel like my characters are these beings that I don’t know, that remain partly mysteries. And that is very good. It’s also the way I look at people: they interest me because of what I don’t know, because of all their ambiguity. »
Our age seems to be the opposite of that, with its attraction to self-revelation. “There is definitely something that corresponds to my time in this desire to stage doubt, uncertainty in the theater. And in the game it’s like another relationship to reality and the world. »
Marie-Laurence Rancourt quotes the writer William Faulkner who spoke of “literature’s digging through the shadows. This is exactly what I want to do with my theater: to stage the incomprehensible, the mysterious, the ambiguity. It seems to me that there is so much theatrical material in this gray area. »
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