EVE IRENE THERRIEN
The article analyses the interpretations of Beckett's Waiting for Godot through the work of two Québécois artists: André Brassard's mises en scène and Dominic Champagne's play La Répétition, inspired by Godot. Against the universalism of Beckett's oeuvre, Brassard and Champagne have manipulated the play to demonstrate the specificities of their culture. While Brassard's latest mise en scène returns to the Québécois theatrical traditions of vaudeville, Champagne's original play is the result of a linguistic and cultural exploration of Québec.
L'article analyse les interprétations de deux artistes québécois de la pièce En Attendant Godot de Beckett. L'étude vise plus particulièrement les deux mises en scène d'André Brassard et une création originale de Dominic Champagne, La Répétition, qui s'inspire de la pièce de Beckett. A priori, l'universalisme beckettien attire les artistes, mais leur Godot devient rapidement un forum sur la spécificité québécoise. Alors que la dernière mise en scène de Brassard retourne aux traditions théâtrales québécoises du vaudeville, la pièce de Champagne résulte d'une exploration linguistique et culturelle du Québec.
Estragon: Je suis comme ça. Ou j'oublie tout de suite ou je n'oublie jamais.
Since Samuel Beckett's plays are specific to neither time nor place, they lend themselves to diverse interpretations. Yet their "universality" is problematic. During his life, Beckett prescribed a way of interpreting his work to all directors. In order to keep productions of his plays as close as possible to his original conception, he kept a tight control over his texts and their mises en scène.[1] That tight authorial control did not end with Beckett's death in 1988. A conservative group of Beckett's collaborators determined to preserve and perpetuate the orthodoxy of the original production, as well as the literary tradition, has since assumed the authority to criticize the Unfaithful (i.e. other directors who have the audacity to adapt his plays). Even though "retaliations" from dedicated Beckettian interpreters were possible, the Québécois artists André Brassard and Dominic Champagne departed from the Beckettian norm.[2] A priori, they discovered in the universality of Beckett's Waiting for Godot a dimension proper to their artistic needs: the neutrality of the text offered a certain liberty of expression. Eventually, Brassard's and Champagne's own deepening explorations of Godot took each on a cultural journey. In an "unfaithful" move, they translated Beckett into a "language" familiar to them, the one by producing an anti-prescriptive mise en scène, the other by writing an original play. Their originality-or their infidelity-lies in resituating the original script and production tradition in a contemporary Québécois context. In fact, a study of André Brassard's two mises en scène (1971, 1992) and Champagne's La Répétition (1991) suggests that Beckett's Godot became increasingly Québécois in Québec in the decades between 1971 and 1992.
In 1971, André Brassard undertook the mise en scène of his first Godot at La Nouvelle Compagnie Théâtrale, which is a professional mainstream theatre. The production conformed to Beckett's stage directions: dark stage, bowler hats, gray colors, Lucky's long white hair, etc. Brassard admitted surrendering to the pressure of canonical conformity: "A vingt-cinq ans, on est moins conscient d'un certain nombre de choses" ("At twenty-five, we are less conscious about a number of things") (Vais 27-28). Yet certain scenic decisions reflected a specifically Québécois interpretation of the play. Uncouth overalls replaced the old suits sported by Gogo and Didi,[3] recalling the image of blue-collar workers more than artist-poets. The enormous "pelisse"[4] over Pozzo's neat suit replaced the cape used to convey the image of the traditional landowner in many other international productions of the play (e.g. Roger Blin's, Walter Amus's).[5] Against Didi and Gogo's shabby clothing, the heftiness of the fur coat gave Pozzo an air of opulence. Yet his pelt also hinted at stereotypical images of an earlier colonial Québec. The fur trade, linked to European colonization, and more specifically to New France before the fall of Québec to the English, stressed the dichotomy between two French-Canadian representations: the ancient model of an affluent French-Canadian entrepreneur was juxtaposed against the contemporary image of a poor French-Canadian. If the costumes emphasized the class struggle between rich and poor, the anachronistic representations of the blue-collar workers (Didi and Gogo) and the colonizer landowner (Pozzo) rekindled recent political tensions for a Québécois public.
Since theatre programs are planned at least a year in advance, it is interesting that Godot was slated for production during a time of unprecedented political violence in Québec's modern history. The year of La Crise d'Octobre, 1970, was defined by the insurrection of a group of pro-independent radicals; the F.L.Q. (Front de Libération du Québec) was composed mainly of French-Canadian proletarians and college students.[6] Needless to say, their terrorist activities against bourgeois anglophones heightened the political tensions between the anglophone and francophone populations of Québec. These unusual violent acts must have imbued the average Québécois' life with a sense of surrealism. William Johnson, a journalist, describes that experience of disorientation and helplessness in an article published after the sequestrations and Pierre Laporte's murder: "Les souvenirs enfièvrés de l'automne dernier semblent tenir de l'hallucination, comme s'ils appartenaient à une dimension de l'espace et du temps autre que celle du Montréal de tous les jours" ("The memories of last fall seem to be part of a hallucination, as if they belonged to a dimension of space and time other than the ones of the familiar Montreal") (Johnson 114). Just like Godot's vagrant pair, the Québécois people had the sense of being unwilling participants in a mise en abyme, a nightmare where there is "nothing to be done" (Beckett 7). Reduced to spectators of a drama, their own life, they could only wait for something better to happen.
Brassard's second mise en scène of Godot, in 1992, was produced in another mainstream professional theatre, Théâtre du Nouveau Monde. Yet it differed dramatically from his 1971 production. He confesses that "ce qui m'a toujours agacé, c'est l'impression qu'il y a une espèce d'intelligentsia ou de spécialistes [autour de Beckett]" ("What always bothered me is the impression of a kind of intelligentsia or specialists around Beckett's work") (Vais 28). Conscious of these impositions, Brassard's newer Godot went against many Beckettian traditions. He gave a Québécois identity to the space and characters he presented in his mise en scène. The most significant changes can be observed in the scenic aspects of the production. A piano and a coat rack replace the rock and the tree accentuating the mise en abyme in the play. Estragon and Vladimir play on the piano and hang their sweaters on the rack. The stage, therefore, seems more a rehearsal space than a no-man's land. Didi and Gogo are clearly destitute vaudevillian performers waiting for Godot, their manager. While Beckett is said to have been inspired by the performances of clowns and Irish music halls, Brassard further accentuates the comical and popular aspect of the play by consciously drawing on the revue style of Québécois theatrical tradition. In the early part of the 20th century, when many French theatres closed, vaudeville remained a flourishing attraction. Since then, it has been a major influence on the Québec theatre and, later, television. Vaudeville actors, like La Poune[7] and Olivier Guimond, have become important theatrical icons on the French-Canadian scene. By casting the well-known comical actors Normand Chuinard and Rémy Girard as the duo Vladimir and Estragon, Brassard further preserved and perpetuated the burlesque tradition. He admits that in directing the play in this context, "J'ai eu l'impression que je parlais dans ma langue au lieu de parler une langue étrangère" ("I had the impression that I was speaking my own language instead of speaking a foreign language") (Vais 29). In order to maintain a vaudevillian atmosphere, Brassard added a few elements. For example, a well-rehearsed routine gesture that usually signals the end of the pair's gag concludes some of their verbal exchanges. With the piano, they sing popular French songs of the Fifties, including "Viens Poupoule." Didi's "dog song" of the second act is accompanied by a soft-shoe number. Although Brassard is, for the most part, faithful to Beckett's text, the vaudevillian context supplies another dimension to the play. It makes Godot familiar territory for the actors and the public.
Brassard's interpretation goes beyond contextualizing the play; he claims the right for his actors to move freely in it. Contrary to Beckett's quest for immobility (i.e. the Wartestelle and precise choreography in Godot or Winnie's mound in Happy Days), Brassard's actors take over the stage.[8] For example, at the beginning of Act Two, when Didi and Gogo see each other after a long night spent in a ditch, a cinematographic slow-motion run toward each other conveys Brassard's exploitation of his actors' physicality. In other words, instead of restraining his actors, the director capitalizes on their physical interpretations to convey a gag (vaudeville style). In contrast to Beckett, whose directing style placed very exacting and specific demands on the actor, Brassard candidly admits that he let his performers-Chouinard and Girard-take over during the rehearsal process: "Alors qu'honnêtement, je n'ai pas fait grand-chose. Tu crinques les comédiens, tu leur donnes une petite poussée, et après ça..." ("Honestly, I did not do much. You propel the actors, you give them a little push, and after that...") (Vais 32).
While there is a comic appeal to all these gestures, Brassard acknowledges their tragic side as well. The original Lucky presented the failure of communication. His monologue, which was one long monotonous sentence, resembled a chain of meaningless words-meaningless at least to his audience. Brassard's version of Lucky interprets this failure mainly through dance. His movements are not born out of a feeling, emotion, or organic impulse; rather, the gesture is mechanical. According to Brassard, Lucky is "polluted" by external influences. He can no longer connect with himself. The beginning of his dance, which looks like a modern dance movement, is interrupted by a disco move à la Saturday Night Fever. The director explains that "Lucky vient pour danser-c'est un Nijinsky-mais il n'est plus capable, parce qu'il a vu trop de vidéoclips, alors il ne peut que refaire ce qu'il a vu" ("Lucky wants to dance-he is a Nijinsky-but he is no longer capable because he has seen too many videos, so he can do only what he has seen") (Vais 34). Although videoclips are also produced in Québec, the American MTV influence is another threat to an isolated culture intent on preserving its peculiarities. Brassard warns the Québécois artists and audiences that American culture may infiltrate their work, their thoughts, without their knowledge. This infiltration is resisted by Brassard's interpretation of Lucky.
Brassard's second production facilitates identification between the Québécois audience and characters by replacing bowler hats and suits with old wool sweaters and soft hats. However, the most surprising transformation can be found in the new interpretation of Pozzo and Lucky. In the first act, the audience is introduced to the master/slave pair by baroque music. Pozzo appears in a coach drawn by Lucky, who wears a court jester costume while the former dresses up in a Louis XIV costume and wig. Pozzo's voice booms, self-conscious of its resonance and intonations. While the others act in a burlesque style, "lui fait du grand théâtre" ("he does classical theatre"), Pozzo embodies the classical French theatre (Vais 30). Brassard sees Pozzo as a European belonging to another universe than the Québécois Didi and Gogo. Jean-Louis Millette, the actor who played Pozzo, defines his character as "le vieil acteur à la formation très académique, très 'Comédie-Française'" ("The old actor with a very 'academic' style, very 'Comédie-Française'") (Bergeron 42). Brassard uses this paragon of old French traditions to critique the power of those traditions to colonize and dominate a younger culture. The directorial chair, as opposed to the stool on which Pozzo sits, is placed centre stage. While Beckett and most directors have elected to block Pozzo's seating position on stage right, Brassard's choice emphasizes Pozzo's overwhelming cultural power.
Textual additions appear in the later production mainly in the repetition of Didi and Gogo's lines to accentuate comic gestural moments. Supplementary songs are included to generate a burlesque atmosphere. The fragments of a song, "On ne sait pourquoi mais ça viendra..." ("We don't know why but it will happen..."), and a muffled sentence, "n'anticipons pas" ("Let's not anticipate"), interfere with Lucky's monologue, consequently making it even more difficult for Lucky to express himself. The effect recalls the noise of channel surfing on television. Brassard attests to the fact that today's technology engulfs the human soul. Yet the most effective use of the text is not in Brassard's additions but in the actors' interpretations. The fact that they could not recall simple words increases both their despair and that of the audience. Brassard capitalizes on the inherent possibilities of the text in this respect. In a Beckettian style-meaning with an economy of emotions that expresses the monotony of the characters' dismal life-the repetition of words is simply stated by the actors:
Vladimir: Ça fait un bruit de plumes
Estragon: De feuilles.
Vladimir: De cendres.
Estragon: De feuilles. (Beckett 88)
(Vladimir: It sounds like feathers
Estragon: Like leaves.
Vladimir: Like ashes.
Extragon: Like leaves.)
In Brassard's production, Estragon's articulation of the same word in this exchange is played so as to convey the intentions of finding a new, a better word to help Vladimir's poetic creativity; Estragon's intense effort when he is about to give his line and Vladimir's look in hopeful anticipation of his partner's inspiration underscore the characters' desire to recover their imaginations. But Estragon resorts to the previous word for lack of inspiration. The fact that the characters were played by Québécois actors accentuated and contextualized the loss of one's native language. Through Beckett's words, Brassard speculates on the failure that awaits a Québécois society content to speak the words of others.
Brassard, then, has used Godot as a mirror of Québec's society but one whose reflected image is not seductive: Vladimir and Estragon become Québécois vagrants without creative power. Outside of a few minor additions mentioned, Brassard is faithful to the original text in the latter production. Yet, his mises en scène of Godot do not surrender to Beckett's directorial impositions. Progressively, with each production of Godot, Brassard has contextualized the universality of the text to fit a specific Québécois cultural point of view, a French-Canadian director manipulating more and more of the physical aspect of the play in order to render it more familiar to himself and to his audience.
The Champagne of the Poor
"Perhaps it's not very humane of me to ask you to reveal your little disasters to the world. I know it's difficult for you to be what you are. But do I have the right to present you to the world as though you were the dregs of humanity?"
-Luce in Playing Bare, Translation of La Répétition.
In 1990, Dominic Champagne, a young Québécois playwright and metteur en scène, admitted to a similar fascination with exploring Beckett's oeuvre. In the postscript of La Répétition, the author acknowledges his unbridled passion for Beckett. Recalling a vagabond-style trip around Europe, Champagne tells that all his belongings were stolen, except for his passport and the play Godot. He remembers, "Dans ma passion, je me disais qu'il me restait l'essentiel, enivré que j'étais par la romance de ma propre errance" (148) ("In my passion, I told myself that I still had the most important thing, intoxicated as I was with my own wandering" (trans. by Tepperman 111).
From Cabaret Neiges Noires (1994) to his mise en scène of Don Quichotte (1998)[9] at the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde, he admits that "Il y a toujours du Beckett et de La Poune dans mes pièces" ("There is always Beckett and La Poune in my plays") (Interview). Vagrancy and shattered dreams are important themes explored within Champagne's corpus, but vaudeville and absurdity also colour his oeuvre. Although his characters are gypsies and vagabonds, they celebrate life: music and dance are intertwined in his plays. Needless to say, it is understandable that Champagne would want to investigate Godot. As early as 1984, Champagne worked on the mise en scène of En Attendant Godot at the Grand Théâtre de Québec in its black box theatre. The production clearly emphasized the circus element. Lucky was a giant bird performing tricks for a decrepit ringmaster, Pozzo. Vladimir and Estragon wore the perennial bowler hats and suits. The actors were faithful to the text.
In 1989, Champagne felt compelled to reproduce Godot in Montréal, but this time with a different emphasis. He wanted to dissociate Godot from its traditional mise en scène. Champagne explains the basis for this second production: "Je ne voulais pas prendre [la pièce] comme un classique mais de la mettre très près de nous" ("I did not want to look at the play as a classic but in a manner that would make it much closer to us") (Interview). Intent on touching the younger generation, he foresaw his actors playing with t-shirts and blue-jeans in a park, stripped of all theatrical pretense. Champagne wanted theatre to touch the younger generation. However, during rehearsals he realized that to make the play accessible to them, he needed to change some of the literary language and replace it with spoken language. He began by changing the "nous" of the original text to "on," and replacing some of the colloquial French expressions with Québécois (i.e. "le turbin" for "la job"). He ended by doing a more thorough linguistic exploration of Godot that led him to abandon the production and write his first play, La Répétition, in 1990.
Deploring the fact that Québec must constantly operate within the context of foreign French texts as opposed to its own translations which would better represent the nation, he mentions the state of schizophrenia surrounding Québécois theatre: "on passe par Paris pour nous donner le miroir de nous-même" ("We go by Paris to give the mirror of ourselves") (Interview). Consequently, the Québécois public is introduced to new foreign work in translation under France's aegis rather than its own, but often a North American voice is muffled or distorted by the European experience. In La Répétition, Champagne demonstrates the implications of France's mediation in Québécois society. When one of the characters is asked to improvise on stage from his own experience, he reverts to a Parisian accent to speak:
Victor: Ah! oui! Tuer le temps! Oui! Tuer le temps! Ah la vie! Quel combat!
Etienne: Ben voyons, tu parles ben drôle! (58)
(Victor: Ah! Yes! To kill time! Ah! Yes! To kill time! Ah! Life! Ah! Life! What a struggle!
Etienne: Oh! Please! You talk too funny!)
Rather than speak in his own language, he prefers lines that mimic French literature. The words have no meaning for Victor, but he uses them to occupy the silence. He believes that theatre should be played this way, in the grand style of the French academy. It is reminiscent of the relationship between the Louis XIV Pozzo and the "parrot" Lucky depicted in Brassard's 1992 production of Godot. The scene suggests that Québec, like Victor, has not been allowed to speak on stage with its own voice. However, as Champagne himself admits, the issue involved is far more complex than that. In recent years, Québec has adapted more foreign plays than it has translated into "Québécois." In her book Sociocritique de la Traduction, Annie Brisset exposes this different perspective. She demonstrates that between 1970 and 1985, Québécois theatre saw an increase in the number of Québécois adaptations of foreign plays. The current method amongst theatrical Québécois "adaptors" is to transpose a foreign play, including a French play, spatially (spatial repatriation) and sometimes temporally into a Québécois domain in order to maximize its accessibility. These local adaptations are more common than pure translations: of eleven plays, nine were adapted and two were translated. Brisset signals that, in Québec, translation has a negative status: "la traduction sert de véhicule de pollution linguistique" ("Translation is used as a vehicle of linguistic pollution") (Brisset 11). Brisset adds that with adaptation, "l'oeuvre étrangère naturalisée se fond et se confond avec la création locale" ("Naturalized foreign works blend and get mixed up with local creations"), therefore reducing the threat of foreign infiltration (Brisset 44). Yet through this process of reclaiming, the foreign play may lose its originality in being adapted.
Although Champagne did not want to translate per se, he modified the text to be more palatable to a novice audience. Reminding himself that Beckett's Godot was originally written in French, Champagne reiterates that the archaic modalities of the text estranged the play from its Québécois audience. What should be the immediate experience of theatre is mediated through its foreignness. Champagne wants to tap directly into the Québécois imagination without transposing onto the other. "Il ne s'agit pas de transposer géographiquement," he insists, "mais de s'approprier Beckett" ("The goal is not to transpose geographically but to appropriate Beckett") in a linguistic fashion (Interview). Yet Beckett believed that the use of a foreign language (in this case, French as opposed to English) freed his messages from clichés. It is reported that Beckett said in French to a German scholar, Niclaus Gessner, that he wrote in that language "parce qu'en français c'est plus facile d'écrire sans style" ("because in French, it is easier to write without style")[10] (Gessner 32). Therefore, his ideas, the essence of his work, could clearly be imparted. Champagne, however, explains that Québécois plays produced in Paris should be translated into Parisian French because of the inability of an overseas audience to properly access the work in its original language: "l'effet d'exotisme de la langue empèche de voir l'essence de la pièce" ("The exotic effect of the language prevents the spectator from getting the essence of a play") (Interview). Similarly, Godot's message could not be digested properly if, on a Québécois stage, Beckett's play remained as it was written. Champagne feels that the play has much to offer to a Québécois generation plagued by unemployment. "De faire rien" (to do nothing) is not well perceived in a capitalist society where a man is judged by what he does, not what he is. Godot, Champagne believes, could assist in exorcising the audience's afflictions, if the text could be directly received. However, he feels its essential meaning could go unnoticed without the "translation."
As with Beckett, Champagne cannot conceive of theatre as a simple bourgeois entertainment. It must change or provoke its audience: "Je crois beaucoup à la catharsis," he underlines. "Je crois au théâtre [...] quand se rassemble les hommes et les femmes pour purger un malheur ensemble" ("I strongly believe in catharsis. I believe in theatre [...] when men and women gather together to purge their misery") (Interview). According to Champagne, many artists simply create an oeuvre for purely aesthetic reasons without asking themselves if that art can be communicated. It is important for him that theatre relate to its audiences and inspire them to think and to feel. Paul Lefebvre, a theatre critic, shares the same concerns as Champagne. He indicates in his essay on Québécois adaptations that,
Le théâtre est en prise directe sur la société, sur son imaginaire et ses représentations symboliques. [...] Le théâtre, art social, s'adresse à un groupe dans un lieu et un momnet précis. Il doit s'adhérer a la collectivité beaucoup plus que les autres genres littéraires qui, eux, sont percus à travers une démarche et un rythme individuel. (Lefebvre 34)
(The theatre is in a direct relationship with its society, its imagination and its symbolical representations. [...] Theatre, as a social art, addresses itself to a group in a specific place and moment. It must adhere to its collectivity much more than any other literary genres which are perceived through an individual rhythm and process.)
For Lefebvre and many others, the adaptive stance that Québécois artists must take with the foreign work serves as an important social recuperation of the nation's identity. Adaptations are therefore the most tangible act of rebellion against foreign factors. Yet, just like translations, adaptations can infringe upon an artist's creativity. They give a false sense of originality. Aware of this phenomenon, Champagne started a personal campaign against imitations. Vowing to remedy the lack of "voix fortes" (strong voices) in Québec, Champagne abandoned rehearsals of Beckett's Godot and set out to write his own Godot. Here, Beckett's play is no longer transposed in time and place, but instead becomes an intertext for Champagne's creation.
La Répétition premièred in January 8, 1990 at La Salle Fred-Barry with the mise en scène by the author. The props that are used in Godot (bowler hats, a long rope, a whip, shoes, etc.) are exposed on a dark bare stage. Beckett's Godot is omnipresent in Champagne's play. La Répétition revolves around the rehearsals of the play Godot. Victor and Etienne are two pseudo-actors who are, in fact, young, unemployed vagrants. Every day, the rehearsal of the play is aborted by a manic-depressive metteure en scène; either she does not show up or she is too incapacitated to direct them. The elusive director and star-actress of the play, Lucky/Luce, sustains herself on nerve pills and alcohol. Often, she will not appear for rehearsals due to her overwhelming distress. She has "le bobo existentiel plein de pus" ("the existential malaise full of pus") (Champagne 16). Neglecting her own soul for the sake of her heroine's soul, Luce feels depleted. She proposes to incarnate the role of Lucky in order to play the void inside of her, the only role she is capable of interpreting. She demands that Pipo, the blind theatre producer, enact the part of Pozzo. The relationship between Pipo and Luce resembles that of the Pozzo and Lucky pair. Their interdependence is clear. The blind Pipo needs Luce (which means light in Italian) to relive vicariously his former stardom through her theatrical success. Once known as "Le Grand-Pierre-Paul," he is now reduced to the nickname Pipo. Yet, as the theatre producer, he has ascendance over the actress. Pipo agrees to revive the role of Pozzo, but on the night of the premiere the actors wait for a Luce/Lucky who never arrives. The curtain will never go up.
Champagne's remodeling of Beckett's Godot succeeds in giving a Québécois account of Beckettian themes such as vagrancy, existential malaise and interdependency. There is an uncanny resemblance between the "actors" and their role. Yet, since Godot is in a state of rehearsal and chaos, we are privileged to experience the "actors'" lives as opposed to their characters. They talk of their everyday routines or of the oppression of their unemployed life. They ponder their past and cherish their friendships. Etienne's colorful style underscores his antagonistic attitude, reminding us of Estragon. While Victor seems more educated, he resembles Vladimir with his gentle manners. Their speech reflects the linguistic concern that Champagne sought to alleviate at the beginning of his own rehearsals of Godot. The author's text has an oral Québécois quality to it.[11] In other words, he wrote the words the way one would hear them. For example, Etienne's line "Ouin que c'est ça c't histoire la" ("Yeah, what's going on"), with its ellipsis and descriptive sound, is typical of a Québécois speech (Champagne 64). Although some information is revealed in terms of the place, the language identifies the characters.
When seeing La Répétition, one has a first impression that the characters have more agency than in Beckett's Godot. Their actions encompass the stage; they play on the balcony of the theatre, in the audience. Like Brassard, Champagne directs his actors to explore the whole theatre, to colonize with their presence and gesture the entire space. Accordingly, the actors' movements are freer and larger than in a typical Beckett production. When Victor or Etienne declare that they are leaving, the corresponding action closely follows their decision to exit the stage:
Etienne: Viens t'en. On s'en va d'icitte. Moi j'ai fini de l'attendre. Il sort. (Champagne 116)
(Etienne: Come on. Let's get out of here. I am done waiting for her. He leaves.)
Or,
Victor: Bon ben ... Bye! Il sort. (Champagen 137)
(Victor: Well ... Bye! He leaves)
as opposed to Beckett's:
Estragon: Alors, on y va?
Vladimir: Allons-y. Ils ne bougent pas (Beckett 75)
(Estragon: Well, should we go?
Vladimir: Let's go. They do not move)
Contrary to Beckett's oeuvre, Champagne wanted to cater to the idea of the quest more than the waiting. "Rêver est interdit dans Godot," Champagne says. "Moi, je voulais travailler sur le conflit qui existe entre le rêveur et la mort. Mes personnages doivent aller vers quelque chose" ("To dream is forbidden in Godot. I wanted to work on the conflict that exists between the dreamer and death. My characters must go towards something") (Interview). Dreams offset humanity's death sentence.
Champagne could not bring himself to destroy the characters' past. In contrast to the extremely fragmented historicity of the characters in Godot, lengthy monologues unveil each character's history. We know, for example, that Etienne and Victor's friendship dates from the time they were students "à la petite école" (at primary school). The audience learns that Etienne's foot problems stem from an accident in Abitibi while go-go dancing on the table-Etienne's trade is a pun on Estragon, alias Gogo. Victor's penile complication is related to gonorrhea. In La Répétition, no one is tormented by the defect of a failing memory. Everyone remembers; everyone can say, "Je me souviens," even if the past is a painful one.
The Lucky character is more predominant in Champagne's play than in Beckett's. Luce is the pivotal element around which other characters evolve. The main reason for this difference is that the Québécois author wanted to explore the contemporary hero. Lucky or Luce, for Champagne, is the paradigm of the modern hero whose dream never realizes itself. Luce's ideals of communion with the audience, of theatre as a didactic and transformative agent, have been decimated by her audience's lack of response. Luce/Lucky's beliefs, which it seems once were articulated in powerful prose, have been reduced to meaningless clamors. Portions of classical monologues from famous characters interfere with Luce's attempt to communicate with her actors. Their grandiose dreams have been dismantled. Champagne relates this to his own experience: "Je suis né en '63. C'était l'époque de Martin Luther King et de son rêve puis de son assassinat. Dans toutes mes oeuvres, il y a un rêveur au prise avec l'échec de son rêve" ("I was born in '63. It was the period of Martin Luther King and his dream and his assassination. In all my work, there is a dreamer grappling with the failure of his dream") (Interview). The utopia formulated by Dr. King in the Sixties is not realized in the Nineties. According to Champagne, Québécois society has no real hero to follow today. He speculates that the reason for this lack of an epic figure is that "on n'est pas prêt à le recevoir" ("We are not ready to accept him") (Interview). Québec, as a nation, is not ready to accept a mentor. It is still trying to come to terms with its future. He mentions that heroic figures like René Lesveque-the late head of the Parti Québécois-have not yet been replaced. No one has been able to transcend the need of the nation because the nation is in crisis. Champagne qualifies post-modern Québec as a chaotic society still searching for a meaning, an identity. On the other hand, he sees this anarchy as an important step toward forming a solid foundation. Recalling Ulysses' convoluted voyage to Ithaca, Champagne underlines that we should "[a]ccepter l'errance en s'en allant vers son but" ("[a]ccept wandering while going toward a goal") (Interview). As long as one has a final goal, the transformative function of vagrancy is positive. Unlike Beckett's protagonists who meander without a dream, Victor and his acolyte have a goal: to find a job, to become somebody. As theatre operates for Champagne as a bonding agent between himself and his actors and his audience, the young playwright envisions his theatre as a catalyst for social awareness. For Champagne, theatre is the antidote to existential malaise. It is the desire to unite under one production, to be one big family and to move mountains (and decor) and fend off the harshness of reality.
Since its premiere in 1990, La Répétition has been televised, published and was awarded a prize from the Association Québécoise des Critiques de Théâtre for the best theatrical text in the 1989-90 season. In 1993, the text was translated into English and performed in Montréal under the title Playing Bare. Unlike Beckett, who translated his own work from French to English (and vice versa), Champagne needed a translator. Hence, he worked closely with Shelley Tepperman to transmit his vision of the play through another language. Slang English replaced Etienne's street language, but obviously the colour of the Québécois language has been lost in the translation. However, similar to Beckett who often continued to revise both the original language and translated text after production, the author incorporated subsequent changes into the French published version. The last scene, particularly, has been modified. Etienne in the first version says to the audience: "Sacrez votre camp, tout le monde, vous êtes venus pour rien!" ("Get out of here, everybody, you came for nothing!") (Champagne 144). But rather than interact directly with the audience, Victor and Etienne repeat to each other the Beckettian exchange of "let's go" as they remain idle. With this new revision, the play's second ending is closer to that of Beckett's Godot. It severs the contact between the audience and its actors who no longer need to speak directly to the public. It seems that working in English influenced Champagne to remain more faithful to the Beckettian tradition. It appears as if it was his native tongue that gave him the power to create an original production. Reverting to an adopted language, the author seems hesitant to depart from the norm.
Champagne writes at the end of La Répétition, this epilogue:
Avec Beckett, il ne reste plus rien à dire. Plus rien à révéler. A découvrir. Le verbe s'est désincarné. Il ne reste que la voix, qui s'acharne, à trouver un sens, puis le sens ne se trouvant pas, la voix s'égare et se perd, poursuivant inlassablement son errance, à la recherche d'une autre voix, qui cherche, elle aussi. (Champagne 148)
(After Beckett there is nothing left to say, nothing left to reveal, to discover. The word is disembodied. All that's left is the voice, relentlessly seeking meaning; no meaning being found, the voice errs and loses its way, tirelessly meandering in search of another voice, which is also searching.) (trans. by Tepperman 112)
Champagne has certainly found something to say to his audience. He wants his voice, his plays, to accompany Québécois voices; together they can scream against the tragic, they can mark failures. But most importantly, they can continue the battle. As an artist, Champagne clearly establishes a direct correlation between inspiration, originality, and political assertion, building strongly on what he perceives as the need for his audience to believe in the "make-believe." For the director, theatre is a mirror pointing at an angle at the Québécois audience. The reflection, because of its angle, catches the glare of a spotlight, and the brightness of the glow modifies the audience's vision. After the performance, the spectators are left with a long-lasting image of themselves similar to the striking and ever so transformed image left burnt into the retina after watching an intense light.
Conclusion
Pozzo: I don' t seem able ... (long hesitation) ... to depart.
While Beckett's Godot refuses the inheritance of a land, Champagne's and Brassard's Godots define their territory. The Québécois artists' personal reflections on the cultural condition of their nation are reflected in their theatrical creations. They intend to provoke their audiences, as Beckett did in the Fifties, by depicting Godot's existential problems as an inherent predicament of their society. Obviously, the absurdity and metaphysical malaise found in Beckett's oeuvre appeal to both artists, but these Beckettian elements resonate with their socio-cultural point of view. Hence, Didi and Gogo's loss of memory and their resulting debilitated status correspond to the cultural fears of the province. Indeed, the fragility of the past is underlined in Luce's and Lucky's lack of originality-they can only express themselves with the words of others. Paradoxically, Brassard and Champagne use, a priori, the words of Beckett to express themselves. Yet, they exercise their artistic power each in his own way. Reacting against the Beckettian prescriptions and, at the same time inspired by the author's play, the Québécois artists invent original productions. Brassard directs a second Godot that strongly incorporates Québécois theatrical traditions, and the vaudevillian style in particular, thus maximizing the physical aspect of the play. Similarly, Champagne's efforts to render the text of Godot more palatable to his audience culminate in his creating his first play. Despite Champagne's affinity for popular entertainment, Beckett's genius continues to inspire him. Yet Beckett's work is put in the hands of the Unfaithful; with Brassard or Champagne, Godot is 'tainted' by vaudeville. Didi and Gogo must adapt to co-exist with La Poune.
Yet this artistic individualization in Brassard's and Champagne's work does not promote a cultural autarchy. In other words, their productions, geared toward a specific audience, can be enjoyed by other cultures. Their theatrical corpus is exportable. Although the production never toured, the comical appeal alone in Brassard's Godot could entertain any audience. In the case of Champagne, English and Spanish translations of La Répétition have been published.[12] The original version of the play is included in the corpus of Francophone literature studied at Rutgers University in New Jersey. There is much to suggest that the playwright's and the director's cultural peculiarities reveal themselves to be, paradoxically, of international significance.
Through the Beckettian medium, Champagne and Brassard appeal to a larger audience, offering not just a slice of Québécois life but a theatrical event that functions simultaneously as a powerful demonstration of a culture, a people, and a deeper cathartic expression of Beckett's endlessly searching "voice" of humanity.
Notes
1. For further comments on the subject of Beckett's directorial impositions, read the very informative book by Lois Oppenheim, Directing Beckett (Ann Harbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1994).
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2. André Brassard admitted that while rehearsing Godot, his greatest fear had been the Beckettian specialists' criticism of his mise en scène. In an interview, Michel Vais asked André Brassard, "Qu'est-ce qui vous faisait le plus peur?'" ("What did you fear the most?") And the director answered, "C'était que les spécialistes, l'intelligentsia, disent: 'Mais ce n'est pas Beckett, voyons. Est-ce que vous avez fait ça pour le populariser?'" ("It was that the specialists, the intelligentsia, said: 'But this is not Beckett. Did you do this to popularize him?'") (qtd in Vais 32).
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3. Because a video of this production was not available, pictures and interviews were my sources. Therefore, my research can only be based on scenic elements like costumes, scenography and make-up. Costume design: François Barbeau; Scenography: Germain; Lighting design: Gatien Payette.
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4. Pelisse is a fur-trimmed coat.
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5. The cape was actually Roger Blin's idea. Blin, who was the first director of Godot,
wanted to create a high-class Pozzo. He was inspired by 19th-century English hunting paintings. Since, many productions have kept the cape for Pozzo.
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6. During that year, bombs detonated in the anglophile areas of Québec. The crisis came to its climax in October of 1970. Felquistes kidnapped two important political figures. One of the hostages was the British cultural attaché, James Richard Cross. The other hostage was the province's secretary of Labor, Pierre Laporte. Aside from being a federalist, Mr. Laporte held a highly controversial position. The Marxist-oriented terrorists did not approve of his decisions regarding the work force. Mr. Laporte's and Mr. Cross's abduction led the National Canadian guard to step in to reinforce order in the province. While Mr. Cross returned safely home from his captivity, Mr. Laporte died from strangulation while trying to escape from his tormentors.
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7. La Poune is the stage name for Rose Ouellette, who was a very popular vaudeville actress in Québec. Until the late 1970s and early 80s, one could still see her performing on the television program Symphorien. Despite her petite size, her presence was undeniably imposing. As with all vaudeville actors, her performance was very physical.
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8. In fact, it is important to note that Beckett sought increasingly to immobilize his actors. His demanding directions on the performer are legendary. Billie Whitelaw's fainting during a rehearsal of Not I is a prime example. Beckett had "imprisoned" the actress in a contraption. Only her mouth was visible and moving. Also, Jessica Tandy, who played the Mouth, recounted her confining experience in Damned to Fame (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996). During rehearsals, her head was tightly strapped; "she found it unbearable and unnecessary" (524). Yet, Whitelaw and Tandy thought the challenge exhilarating regardless (or because) of the physical confinement.
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9. In 1998, Champagne used the same two actors-Normand Chouinard and Rémy Girard, who played Gogo and Didi in Brassard's second mise en scène-to represent Don Quichotte and Sancho Pança. After seeing Brassard's Godot in 1992, Champagne acknowledged that he had been impressed by "le regard de Brassard et par la grande virtuosité et l'humanité de Rémy et de Normand" ("Brassard's point of view and by the virtuosity and humanity of Rémy and Normand") (Prince 9). Partially as a result of the production, Champagne began to look for opportunities to work with the two actors.
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10. Moreover, Martin Esslin, in The Theater of the Absurd, touches on Beckett's use of French as a writing tool. He mentions that, in doing this, Beckett "insures that his writing remains [...] a constant struggle, a painful wrestling with the spirit of language itself" (Woodstock: The Overlook Press. 1973):20.
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11. For an interesting argument on the subject of "joual" in Québécois literature read Chantal Bouchard's La langue et le nombril. (Québec: Fides. 1998).
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12. In the theater pamphlet for Don Quichotte, produced by Théâtre du Nouveau Monde, there is a mention of a Spanish publication and a production in Mexico: "Cette pièce sera d'ailleurs publiée en espagnol et jouée à Mexico en mai prochain" (Prince 9).
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