A toi, pour toujours, ta Marie-Lou

1996 Compagnie Jean-Duceppe " À toi, pour toujours, ta Marie-Lou"
Directed by René Richard Cyr
Starring Michel Dumont and Pierrette Robitaille

Synopsis
Presenting both their past and present lives, Carmen and Manon agonize within and between themselves over the relationship between their parents, Leopold and Marie-Lou. The two sisters are torn in their loyalties to a mother who was uninvolved and a father who was emotionally and physically abusive. They struggle with the image of their father as a monster and who has caused a rift between the sisters, who, until a visit to the family home one weekend, have been unable to confront their anger. Scenes from the past reveal the father as a dominant sexual ogre and the mother as submissive, repressed, and resentful. We learn that to alleviate his own frustration, Leopold drove Marie-Lou over a cliff, ridding himself of the constant pain in his life. The two daughters are left with the legacy of torment, as they struggle to identify their father as a monster and then move on with their own lives.

A chamber work showing Tremblay's extraordinary control not only over language (he uses joual , here as in many of his plays) but also over structure. Raw, brutal and with a hair-raising ending, this remains one of the great plays of this country's dramatic literature.

Characters
Marie-Louise (in her forties)
Leopold (in his forties)
Carmen (26 years old)
Manon (25 years old)

The Setting / Time and Staging
The set is divided into three parts: centre upstage, a very clean but very dark kitchen, decorated exclusively with religious pictures, statues, candles, etc ; to the left, a sitting room with a sofa, a television, and a small table; to the right, a tavern table with three chairs.

The double action of the play takes place in the kitchen but I wish to "install" MARIE-LOUISE and LEOPOLD in the places where they are happiest: MARIE-LOUISE is therefore knitting in front of the television; LEOPOLD is seated at a table in a tavern in front of half-a-dozen bottles of beer. As for MANON and CARMEN, they are actually sitting in the kitchen.

The two conversations (MARIE-LOUISE - LEOPOLD, and CARMEN - MANON) take place ten years apart but are constantly mixed together. MARIE-LOUISE and LEOPOLD are in 1961. CARMEN and MANON are in 1971. CARMEN and MANON also become characters in an earlier past; that is, girls aged fifteen and sixteen.

Production History
First staged at the Théâtre de Quat'Sous on April 29, 1971, directed by André Brassard , with Lionel Villeneuve , Hélène Loiselle , Luce Guilbeault , and Rita Lafontaine .

Revived in 1991 at Théâtre d'Aujourd'hui as part of a trilogy called La Trilogie des Brassard (the two other works were Sainte-Carmen de la Main and Damnée Manon, Sacrée Sandra). In this instance also directed by Brassard and featuring Lafontaine, Rémy Girard , Élise Guilbeault , and Sylvie Drapeau .

Produced in English at Tarragon Theatre in Toronto in 1972 as Forever Yours, Marie-Lou. The work has been performed in French and English across the country.

All of the characters of this work appear in other Tremblay dramatic or prose works (notably the two daughters - Carmen and Manon in Sainte-Carmen de la Main and Damnée Manon, Sacrée Sandra ).

Trivia
In October, 2001, Théâtre de Quat'Sous artistic director Wajdi Mouawad "used" Marie-Lou in another theatrical sense; in his adapation of Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of An Author, the play within the play is Marie-Lou... Hélène Loiselle , the original Marie-Lou, appeared in the Pirandello.

Biographical Information
Born June 25, 1942, Tremblay was raised on Rue Fabre in the "Plateau Mont-Royal" section of east Montreal. He won a scholarship to a collège classique, but left after three months and enrolled at the Institut des Arts Graphiques, where he studied graphic arts and, like his father, became a linotype operator. Tremblay's first play, Le Train (1964), won first prize in the young amateurs contest of Radio-Canada, and he published his first fiction, the short story collection Contes pour buveurs attardés (Stories for Late Night Drinkers) in 1966. With the popular success of Les Belles-soeurs Tremblay established his theatrical career and reputation, which enabled him to devote himself to writing full-time. Tremblay continued with a group of plays collectively known as "Les Cycle des Belles-soeurs," which concluded with Damnée Manon, sacrée Sandra (1977). After this play-cycle, Tremblay directed his attention to a series of novels collectively known as "Les Chroniques du Plateau Mont-Royal," including Le Premier quartier de la lune (1989; The First Quarter of the Moon). Tremblay also produced several independent works, most notably the plays L'Impromptu d'Outremont (1980; The Impromptu of Outremont), which satirizes bourgeois cultural values, Les Anciennes Odeurs (1981; Remember Me), a psychological study of a homosexual couple, and Albertine in cinq temps (1984; Albertine in Five Times), a technical masterpiece focusing on one character in dialogue with herself at different ages; the opera NELLIGAN (1990); and the autobiographical sketches and fiction of Les Vues animées (1990). Throughout his career, Tremblay has received numerous literary awards and academic honors, and many of his plays have been staged in the United States, Europe, Japan, and New Zealand.

Major Works
Tremblay's work blends psychological realism, structural experimentation, and political expression. "Les Cycle des Belles-soeurs" is comprised of the plays Les Belles-soeurs, En Pièces détachées (1969; Like Death Warmed Over), La Duchesse de Langeais (1970), À toi, pour toujours, ta Marie-Lou (1971; Forever Yours, Marie-Lou), Hosanna (1973), Bonjour, là, bonjour (1974), Sainte-Carmen de la Main (1976; Saint Carmen of the Main), and Damnée Manon, sacrée Sandra, and well as the plays Berthe, Johnny Mangano and His Astonishing Dogs, and Gloria Star, published collectively as Cinq in 1966. Peopled by social misfits, transvestites, and homosexuals, each play presents a different aspect of life in Montreal's Plateau Mont-Royal, a milieu of economic and social despair centered around two distinct areas—the residential Rue Fabre and the red-light district known as The Main. Les Belles-soeurs centers on Germaine, who has won a million trading stamps in a contest. As a group of neighborhood women gather in Germaine's squalid flat to help her paste them into booklets for redemption, each woman reflects on her frustrations. In the end Germaine's neighbors steal every booklet, leaving Germaine more desperate than ever. Some of the other plays in Tremblay's dramatic cycle portray similar domestic tragedies on Rue Fabre, including Bonjour, là, bonjour, which examines a father-son relationship; Like Death Warmed Over, which focuses on the children of Robertine, alcoholic Thérèse and insane Marcel; and Forever Yours, Marie-Lou, which presents a harsh portrait of family life in impoverished Montreal. The rest of the plays in the cycle feature disillusioned characters who have left Rue Fabre for further disappointment as drag queens, prostitutes, and homosexuals on The Main. La Duchesse de Langeais depicts a deluded transvestite prostitute rejected by a young client she loves, and Hosanna centers on a crisis in the relationship between a drag queen and "her" male lover. The children of Forever Yours, Marie-Lou assume the title roles in Tremblay's last plays in the cycle, Saint Carmen of the Main, in which Carmen is murdered for trying to free her transvestite and prostitute friends, and Damnée Manon, sacrée Sandra, which juxtaposes the religious ecstasy sought by Manon with the sexual cravings of "Sandra," a male transvestite. The novels of "Les Chroniques du Plateau Mont-Royal"—comprised of La Grosse Femme d'à côté est enceinte (1978; The Fat Woman Next Door Is Pregnant), Thérèse et Pierrette à l'école des Saints-Agnes (1980; Therese and Pierrette and the Little Hanging Angel), La Duchesse et le roturier (1982), Des Nouvelles d'Édouard (1984), Le Cœur découvert, roman d'amours (1986; The Heart Laid Bare: Making Room), and The First Quarter of the Moon—serve as complements to Tremblay's dramatic cycle, providing a social and familial context for central characters in the plays and fleshing out minor characters.

-sources :
University of Glasgow ; Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia ; Doollee Database