SARA GRAEFE
This essay examines the structural and representational strategies employed by Michel Marc Bouchard in Lilies, or the Revival of a Romantic Drama to effect a transformation of the traditional images of homosexuality in the contemporary theatre. At the centre of the play is a love affair between two young men in the rural and oppressive environment of Roberval in 1912; a complex metatheatrical structure, incorporating numerous mises en abyme surrounds this nucleus and facilitates an exploration of problems which relate directly and indirectly to its expression of adolescent passion. Within this structure, Bouchard, like his characters, makes use of theatrical revival as a narrative technique in order to reconstruct present meaning out of the past. Bouchard shows that the theatre can arrive at the truth while remaining an artifice, and through its revival and revision of the past can create an alternative theatrical representation of homosexuality.
Cet essai examine les stratigies structurales et reprisentationelles employ ées par le dramaturge Michel Marc Bouchard dans les Feluettes ou la Répétition d'un drame romantique pour transformer les images traditionelles de I'homosexualité dans le théâtre contemporain. Une histoire d'amour, entre deux jeunes hommes dans le milieu rural et oppressif de Roberval en 1912, se trouve au centre des Feluettes; une structure complexe et méta-théâtrale, qui comprend de nombreuses mises en abyme, enveloppe ce noyau et facilite une exploration de diverses questions qui se rapportent de façon directe et indirecte à l'expression centrale de la passion adolescente. À l'intgrieur de cette structure Bouchard, comme ses personnages, se sert de la répétition théâtrale comme technique narrative afin de reconstruire, ei partir du passi, un sens qui serait pertinent dans le prisent. Bouchard dimontre que le théâtre a la capaciti d'exprimer la viriti tout en restant un artifice, et il se permet de réviser sa reprise du passé pour crier une représentation alternative de 1'homosexualité sur scène.
Michel Marc Bouchard's contemporary Canadian play, Lilies, or the Revival or the Romantic Drama, positively stunned audiences when it opened in Toronto in translation by Linda Gaboriau, as much as it won acclaim in its original French version, les Feluettes ou la Répétition d'un drame romantique, which toured extensively in Québec.1 The reason for the play's success is no doubt linked to the fascinating and intellectually challenging nature of Bouchard's script: what on the surface may be too hastily summed up as an adolescent love story of two gay men struggling to find fulfilment in their homophobic, rural town of Roberval in 1912, is in fact something much more complex. The love story certainly lies at the core of the play, yet is framed by and embedded in a complex multi-levelled, multi-time-framed, metatheatrical structure which allows Bouchard to explore a range of themes and issues both directly and indirectly relating to the adolescent expression of passion at the centre. Within this structure, like his characters, Bouchard uses the revival of drama as a narrative device in order to reconstruct meaning from the past that is relevant to the present. Bouchard's attention to the act of performing and reviving drama on all levels of Lilies comments on the power of theatre to extract truth and to facilitate personal expression, while remaining an artificial construct. Bouchard's own choice to draw on the past and to present gay issues in this unusual, complex manner enables him to revise through revival, creating new insights and an alternative representation of homosexuality on the contemporary stage.
Bouchard immediately draws attention to the concept of revival in the subtitle. In fact, the original French subtitle, la Répétition d'un drame romantique, contains a clever play on words: "répétition" implies both the rehearsal of a play, and the repetition of a previously performed drama. No English equivalent so neatly encompasses both concepts in a single word. One would assume that Bouchard endorsed translator Gaboriau's choice of English title,2 which emphasizes the word revival over rehearsal: revival is indeed most applicable to what Bouchard plays with in the script.
Hence, it is useful to consider the implications of the word "revival," in order to appreciate how the act of reviving is an integral part of Lilies. Revival can certainly be used in a theatrical context, referring to the new production of old plays or of works in historical genres. The act of revival in a broader sense connotes the process of bringing something feeble, dead or forgotten, back to consciousness or strength. This encompasses a range of situations, from the resuscitation of a dying person to the rediscovery and celebration of artistic and intellectual trends previously dismissed as outdated. Revival in the context of Lilies thus can take on several levels of meaning. As the subtitle initially suggests, drama is literally revived on stage in various situations. Thematically, elements such as passion, homoeroticism, romanticism, religion and life experience are revived as both the characters and Bouchard engage in restaging plays.
This leads one to consider why people choose to revive plays, and what is gained by turning back to the old instead of creating something totally new. On the one hand, theatrical pieces from the past that were either popular in their time, or revered and canonized in retrospect, are often revived simply to celebrate their excellence. On the other hand, the revival of an old play implies that both the director and the audience find something relevant thematically and stylistically in the work that transcends time and holds meaning applicable to their own contemporary experience. This upholds to a certain extent the idea of universality. Perhaps most important is the notion that one can gain insight into one's present situation by re-examining the past: theatrical revival thus becomes a tool in the search for truth and meaning relevant to the present.
The desire to refer back to the past in order to gain insight into the present helps account for why Bouchard chose to convey his narrative in the form of a play within a play within a play: the revival of drama recurs in every time frame of the piece. Bouchard initially presents Bishop Bilodeau, who comes to meet his former schoolmate, Simon, in an auditorium in 1952, after the latter has been wrongly jailed for thirty years. This set-up becomes the "real" or present time and space for all the characters. Simon brings on his fellow convicts who, for the duration of Lilies, stage a play that recreates life events that took place in Roberval in 1912, based on Simon's memory and descriptions from Bilodeau's diary. This diary, given to Simon in 1912 as a gift, now resurfaces in the play to incriminate Bilodeau, and to set Simon's story straight. The dramatization thus becomes a trial of sorts; it is an extended flashback re-created through theatricality, observed by the Bishop and Simon in 1952, and into which they can interject. In the world of 1912, adolescents Simon and Bilodeau and their fellow students, as represented by the convict actors, are rehearsing D'Annunzio's Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian under the direction of Father Saint-Michel at the School for Boys in Roberval. The neoromantic play presents itself as a dramatic fiction, the play within a play within a play, which transposes to rural 1912 Qu6bec a saintly story set in Roman times but written by an Italian in the early twentieth century. The presentation of this play is most literally the revival of a romantic drama, which is re-revived by Simon's play in 1952, and again in 1987 by Bouchard's Lilies as a whole.
Revival does not simply occur with the restaging of dramas within the text. Bouchard himself immediately reaches into the past by setting the outer frame of his mise en abyme in 1952, which historically lies at the height of the oppressive Duplessis régime, "la grande noirceur" in Québec, instead of in the late 80s, the period in which he created the script. The play transposes itself to the present only through the audience itself, who interpret the action from their own contemporary experience. The past in the play is in fact constructed from a contemporary perspective, by the playwright in the 80s, who has chosen to depict aspects in the past that he knows will apply to today.
The search for meaning through revival thus works simultaneously on two levels throughout Lilies: while the characters in 1952 and 1912 stage dramas to explore truths of importance to them, Bouchard as the playwright responsible for this complex set-up uses the staging of Lilies as a whole, including all the plays within it, to draw out his own meanings and messages for a contemporary audience. In order to fully understand what Bouchard manages to achieve through revival of the past, it is useful to first explore the search for truths undertaken by the characters in the context of the plot alone, before going on to consider the results of Bouchard's own choice to return to the past to create a homosexual drama relevant to the present.
The staging of plays within Lilies is driven by the characters' desires and preoccupations with expressing truths in some form. The characters are as aware as Bouchard that theatre can be used to explore meaning relevant to their own experiences. For instance, Father Saint-Michel uses college theatricals at the Saint Sebastian School for Boys as a guise for his own personal self-expression. On one level, he is simply doing his job as teacher by directing the plays. The practice of staging plays in the collèges classiques in Québec is historically accurate.3 Although theatre continued to cause tension with the Catholic church, the study of plays and drama was considered to be a tool for teaching knowledge and practising declamation. Plays that were deemed morally and intellectually instructive would be performed for special occasions, often in censored versions. French classics by such writers as Molière and Racine were frequently chosen as repertoire, as well as recent European successes and plays depicting the stories of the saints. The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, which is staged in Roberval, was written by the Italian poet and playwright Gabriele D'Annunzio in 1911, and hence fits the criteria of being both the story of a saint, after whom the school is named as well, and a recent hit in France. The deputy's upcoming visit from Québec City to present the boys with their diplomas creates a special occasion, which is an excuse for a play.
However, Father Saint-Michel's motives for choosing this particular play are not purely attached to curricular concerns. He pushes his boy actors to let go of their inhibitions and to express true passion on stage. Vallier, playing Sanaé, throws himself "awkwardly, limply" (10) on Simon who, as Saint Sebastian, is tied to a tree and awaiting execution. Father Saint-Michel urges them to push their emotions further:
You fall on him like a corpse. I realize such signs of affection are not very common in Roberval, but Saint Sebastian is your love, and he is asking you to kill him. Just imagine, the person you love most in the world asking you such a favor [corrects himself] ... such a sacrifice. It's a moment of ultimate love! (16)
Father Saint-Michel obviously uses the play as a vehicle to display homoerotic passion on stage. The story of Saint Sebastian lends itself to this type of interpretation, while remaining holy on the surface. Saint Sebastian was a martyr who, according to the Oxford Dictionary of the Saints, is most commonly depicted in art as being tied to a tree and pierced with the arrows of Roman Emperor Diocletian, "supposedly because it gave Renaissance artists opportunities to portray a young and sometimes effeminate male nude in an ecclesiastical context" (380-381). D'Annunzio's play similarly permits Father Saint-Michel to present the image of a nearly naked boy in the arms of another man on stage while remaining in the bounds of a religious and educational context. Furthermore, D'Annunzio's play is written in the neoromantic genre and thus lends itself to excessive displays of passion, flamboyant verse, and outsized, unbridled emotion, although its plot is fundamentally based on a religious story. Father Saint-Michel apparently has a history of staging plays with homoerotic and romantic overtones. The previous year, Vallier played a horse, yet the performance raised a controversy nonetheless because Simon was instructed to run his fingers through Vallier's hair.
Father Saint-Michel revives dramas that suit the criteria of his superiors and interprets the plays to suit his own needs. Theatre enables him to express his own homosexual, passionate desires that are denied him by the Church, to which he has dedicated his life. He in effect goes against the system while operating within it. He understands that theatre offers limitless possibilities for expression:
One can do anything in the theatre, you know. One can reinvent life. One can be in love, jealous, insane, tyrannical or possessed. One can even lie and cheat. One can kill without feeling the slightest remorse. One can die of love, of hate, of passion ... (17)
Father Saint-Michel realizes that theatre allows one to express things that may be unbelievable, impermissible or sinful in real life. Even though he is aware that he is re-inventing life, his plays ironically come closer to his own truth than his lifestyle. Theatre indeed lets him do anything: it allows him to be himself. However, the local audience also appears to be aware of Father Saint-Michel's subversiveness. Bilodeau's mother and other parents force their boys to withdraw from the play because they object to their sons walking "around on stage half-naked" (19). The mothers immediately equate the scant costumes, which they colourfully name "filthy rags ... pervert's panties, and ... crack-ticklers" (19), and the suggestive stage gestures with homosexuality, "the plague" (20) that "some of the guys like Vallier and Simon are starting to catch" (20). Father Saint-Michel defends himself on the basis of artistic licence, claiming that the women are too simple to understand good theatre, and make the mistake of interpreting it as real life: "No one understands me. I try to offer them modern productions. But I keep forgetting that we are at the mercy of an audience of peasants whose taste is limited to operettas, light comedies or melodramas" (16-17). The locals' fears are not, however, unfounded. Yet, as Father Saint-Michel is in a situation where homosexuality is a sin, he attempts to pass off his work as fantasy because it is only theatre.
Vallier and Simon also search for meaning throughout the summer of 1912, as depicted in older Simon's staged re-creation. Like Father Saint-Michel, they too seek forms to openly express their sexual orientation and their buming passion for one another. D'Annunzio's Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian once again becomes the vehicle for their self-definition. Unlike Father SaintMichel, they do not limit their dramatization to the stage alone: they apply D'Annunzio's script directly to their real life situation, so that they can proclaim their love outside the artifice of theatre, while continuing to use theatre as a means of expression. Vallier is the first to revive the play in everyday circumstances by attending, or more accurately, gate-crashing Simon's engagement party, wearing a thrown-together representation of Caesar's costume, "draped in crimson, gold and cream-coloured curtains, and wearing a crown of leaves in his hair" (52). Vallier introduces himself in character and invites Simon to join him in the role play: "I am Caesar, and they have just brought before me the fair Sebastian who prefers another religion to mine. Do you remember your lines, Simon?" (53). Preference of another religion works in the context of Saint Sebastian's story, but Vallier also implies that Simon is being untrue to his homosexual nature by marrying Lydie-Anne simply to be socially acceptable and avoid further brutal beatings from his father. Simon picks up on the double meaning and willingly takes on the role of Saint Sebastian, and the dialogue filled with subtext continues to the point where the men proclaim their love for one another in D'Annunzio's words:
VALLIER [playing CAESAR]: ... I want to crown the Morose Child and myself. [He goes to embrace SIMON.]
SIMON [playing SEBASTIAN]: Caesar, know that I have chosen my god. [Silence.] (53-54)
Their role-play strongly affects those present: the guests too read between the lines and catch the deeper meaning of the dramatization. Timothde, Simon's father, orders Vallier to leave, while Lydie-Anne slaps Vallier. The dynamic created between the drama and the subtextual link to the lovers' real situation, directly juxtaposed with the party guests' observations and reactions to the drama, is interesting to watch. The audience can fully appreciate all three aspects working against one another.
Simon and Vallier borrow from The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian in their subsequent encounters, again using the play to express their sexuality and desires. On the eve of his departure to Paris with Lydie-Anne, Simon drops by Vallier's house under the pretence of saying goodbye and wishing Vallier a happy birthday, yet ends up proclaiming his love. On this occasion, the men do not take on specific roles, but use metaphors from D'Annunzio's script for their own self-expression. Simon articulates the recurring theme of sacrifice in Saint Sebastian, that "one must kill one's love that it may be reborn seven times more ardent" (61). At this moment, both men are embracing, standing in an old-fashioned bathtub filled with water. Vallier is naked, as he was taking a birthday bath when Simon arrived, and Simon is still dressed, as he stepped right into the tub to be with Simon. This creates a powerful, beautiful, if not a somewhat unusual image of two male lovers. Their standing in water evokes the image of baptism, which is supported by Simon's proclamation, "I shall be reborn. My breath and the heavens bear witness. I shall be reborn" (60). They are in effect reappropriating the ceremony of baptism to legitimize and celebrate their homosexuality: this act of defiance is particularly powerful because the Catholic church, whose presence pervades Roberval and Lilies as a whole, strongly influences society's condemnation of homosexuality. The moment also serves to powerfully transpose the words from Saint Sebastian to the lovers' own situation: Vallier and Simon borrow other words and ceremonies to redefine their own ground.
The lovers return to Saint Sebastian at the culminating moment of their relationship, when they refer to the piece to reappropriate another sacred ceremony, marriage. Simon and Vallier attempt to commit joint suicide in the school attic, where their encounters began, by swallowing Simon's and Lydie-Anne's wedding rings and setting the building on fire. The men proclaim ultimate love for one another "till death do [them] part" (67). In the terms set out by Saint Sebastian, the only way to prove such ultimate love is through death itself. as they are dying, the lovers quote D'Annunzio a final time, echoing the phrase they have proclaimed throughout Lilies, "one must kill one's love that it may be reborn, seven times more ardent" (67). From the beginning of their relationship to the point of their destruction, the lovers use theatre as a vehicle for expressing their own truths.
In the outer time frame of 1952, theatre is once again used to explore the past in search of understanding. However, instead of reviving a play, as Father Saint-Michel did, Simon chooses instead to re-create real, past life events on stage. The performance itself is somewhat unusual as only one audience member is present, the Bishop, who is forced to watch at knife-point. Simon's use of theatre thus seems imminently dangerous, even though the events in 1912 turn out to be entertaining, engaging and beautiful to watch. Simon takes advantage of this duality by passing off the play as an innocent revival of their school days, which makes the underlying sense of threat ambiguous:
BISHOP BILODEAU: Do you realize that you are holding a bishop hostage?
SIMON IN 1952: 1 just invited my old schoolmate to a little theatrical evening, like we used to organize back in those days. (13)
The play in 1952 will obviously be a lot more than a "little theatrical evening," much in the way that the school theatricals in 1912 deviated from good, clean entertainment. Simon is indeed holding the bishop hostage, and is evidently seeking vindication. The actors are all, like Simon, "victims of a judicial error" (12), giving them personal motivation to set the record straight by forcing Bishop Bilodeau to face his own guilt and his sexual desires. The choice of using theatre as a device to incriminate Bilodeau, instead of confronting him in person or exposing his diary, is clearly premeditated. As Simon in 1952 explains, "We been workin' on our show for three years, just for you, Your Excellency. It would be a shame if you had to leave prematurely" (12). Simon seems aware of the power of theatre: he realizes that witnessing the representation of events on stage will be such a strong and disturbing experience for Bilodeau that the Bishop will be forced to reveal his anguish. Theatre's ability to test a guilty conscience immediately brings to mind Hamlet's use of the players in Shakespeare, to incriminate King Claudius: "The play's the thingfWherein I'll catch the conscience of the King" (II.ii.616-617). Like Claudius, the Bishop's extreme reaction to the events on stage immediately reveals his guilt. The Bishop is so jarred by the drama that he begins interjecting protestations as early as the end of Episode 1. Bilodeau becomes progressively agitated as the play unfolds, and his cries of denial become more frantic until at the end, "unable to restrain himself any longer" (68), he actually runs onto the stage, breaking the physical barrier that existed between himself and the players during the course of the performance. The confrontation between the Bishop and Simon resumes, as Simon forces the Bishop, now literally in the spotlight, to finish the story in his own words, since the play does not have an ending without his confession. The Bishop is so affected by the piece that he discloses everything, and then pleads that Simon kill him. Simon refuses, stating, "I hate you so much ... I'm gonna let you live" (69).
The images of the play are so vivid that they will no doubt haunt Bilodeau for the rest of his life. Simon has thus avenged himself, while successfully using the revival of drama to uncover truths. Simon also finds meaning for himself above and beyond the assertion of his innocence. In recreating events, he makes sense of what happened in retrospect. Simon watches the events from a different perspective by letting another man play himself: Simon takes on the role of the director and his father's character, and at certain points removes himself completely by joining the Bishop in the audience. Also, by forcing Bilodeau to end the play with his confession, Simon discovers the missing pieces to his own experience which were lost when he passed out, and which have tormented him for years in prison.
While the characters revive drama in search for truth and meaning within their constructed worlds on stage, Bouchard continuously reminds the outer audience of the ambiguity that exists when one tries to present so-called truth or reality on stage. The metatheatricality of Lilies as a whole draws one's attention to the artifice involved in staging a play. Bishop Bilodeau is set apart from the stage while observing the dramatic event. The audience is conscious of his presence, which breaks the proscenium: by watching him witness the theatricals himself, the audience is taken out of the play and constantly reminded that they too are in a theatre watching a play within a play within a play. The revival of drama in Lilies always remains a theatrical representation of things past; never are the audience and Bilodeau permitted to totally slip into the story and accept it as reality. The original productions consciously departed from naturalism and emphasized theatricality.4 For example, the sets in the French production were sparse and looked like flimsy cardboard, as though they were constructed in 1952 specifically for the purpose of putting on a play. Because they were made of paper, they were subsequently burned bit by bit, physically representing Simon's episodes of arson, a symptom of his anguish in 1912. This concept was fully developed in the suicide sequence, when in the French production Simon set fire to a series of miniature buildings, representing the town of Roberval, while he and Vallier swallowed the rings and embraced, awaiting death. The operation of lights and all set changes were executed by the convict actors in full view of the audience, fitting in with their own staging of drama in 1952, but reminding spectators in 1987 that they are in a theatre.
Bouchard includes crucial elements in the script itself as reminders to the audience that theatre is only a mimesis of reality, especially in terms of the logistics of the performance in 1952. For instance, the fact that the play in 1952 is performed by Simon's fellow convicts has several implications. The convicts take on the roles of the characters, but they never truly become those characters, although Simon initially introduces them as the real people from 1912. The Bishop himself immediately points out that Simon is twisting the truth: "All these people are dead. You're being macabre, Mr. Doucet! ... This is absurd" (12). Furthermore, the characters in the re-creation cannot be real, as one is presented with two representations of Simon's character and Bilodeau's character in a situation where the young and old component of each man can interact with himself. One's attention to the fact that Bilodeau and the audience are watching a re-creation is emphasized further by the Bishop's constant questioning of the accuracy of events depicted on stage: "I don't know what you're talking about! I want proof!" (28) progresses to "all of that is untrue" (40) and "Lies!" (56). At the same time, the recreation mirrors the real events so powerfully that Bilodeau is finally moved to confess his guilt.
The convicts in effect totally draw the play away from reality, as they constitute an all-male cast, and hence even the female roles are played by men. This occurs for practical reasons in Simon's case; he rehearsed the piece during his prison term. Bouchard as playwright purposely creates an all-male space on stage. Because one is witnessing theatre, one accepts that Lydie-Anne, the Countess and the Baroness are female characters in terms of understanding the plot, yet the awareness that they are physically male creates a fascinating underlying tension which did not exist in the real life events of 1912: homoeroticism moves even closer in Bouchard's and Simon's revival, or in effect, revision of events. Heterosexual relationships depicted on stage are loaded with homosexual undertones. Simon's relationship with LydieAnne represents an effort on his part to suppress his homosexual nature and is deemed socially acceptable. However, because Lydie-Anne is played by a man in drag, when she and Simon kiss in their explicit manner, the audience actually witness an exchange of passion between two men. Thus, their kisses are as equally offensive for the Bishop as the homoerotic exchanges between Simon and Vallier, which continue to disturb him as much in 1952 as in 1912. Bishop Bilodeau is bombarded with exhibitions of homoerotic passion as he watches Simon's play: the unusually close mother-son relationship between the Countess de Tilly and Vallier immediately takes on homosexual connotations, as does the marriage between the Baron and the Baroness de Hüe. Traditionally "safe," "pure" heterosexual relationships are twisted in this drama into something Bilodeau and the church cannot tolerate.
The concept of an all male-cast performing roles of both genders is directly in keeping with the revival of drama in the colléges classiques, where the student body was exclusively male. School theatricals would feature only boys out of necessity, as in the production of Saint Sebastian, where Bilodeau plays the part of the Syrian slave girl. Father Saint-Michel in effect did not have to rely on homoerotic overtones in a script to display homosexual passion on stage: he could have achieved the same effect with a heterosexual love scene, as Simon does in 1952.
All in all, the constant attention drawn to the fact that the audience is in the theatre and not witnessing events in real life gives an ironic slant to the search for truth through dramatic revival. Truth and meaning in theatre are essentially created through artifice. One cannot, however, simply dismiss theatre as a lie, as Bilodeau attempts to do. Bouchard's work reminds us that theatre is a useful tool to extract relevant meaning, but one must be careful not to accept its truths totally at face value. Ultimately, this play vividly reinforces the notion that theatre is simply a mimesis of reality, and never assumes to be reality itself.
Having considered how the search for meaning is a concern and is made possible for the characters through the revival of drama and the past, and how theatre by its nature paradoxically reveals the truth through artifice, one can go on to explore what Bouchard achieves overall with the use of multi-levelled revival. He in effect accomplishes a great many things, as the script is so complex, and a full discussion of these aspects would go beyond the scope of this paper. However, some important elements arise specifically out of his preoccupation with revival and truth. He in effect defies expectations of a contemporary gay playwright by reviving the past instead of writing things that may initially appear more politically relevant to the gay community, such as AIDS-related issues. Yet when one recalls that revival of the past is triggered by the desire to re-examine and understand the present, the insights revealed in Lilies seem very pertinent, and serve to comment on homosexuality in a different, passionate way that may be lost in purely didactic and overtly political gay plays.
In reviving the past by reconstructing it himself, Bouchard revises the past and the presentation of male homosexuality on stage. The entire male cast in Simon's play in 1952, and in Lilies as a whole, not only serves to emphasize the theatricality of the piece, but also creates a totally male space on stage where hornoeroticism is implicit in every relationship: this fairly unusual circumstance offers an empowering experience for both the gay actors in the actual cast, and for the gay community as a whole. This in effect would classify Lilies as being a radical piece of gay theatre, according to Derek Cohen and Richard Dyer, co-authors of The Politics of Gay Culture: "Whereas much conventional handling of homosexuality in the arts works by introducing gay characters or images into an otherwise heterosexual milieu, radical gay culture defines its own situation [ ... ] Radical gay culture sees our experiences as being central" (qtd. in Wallace, Jeu 54 32). By creating this gay space on stage, Bouchard establishes a context in which homoerotic passion becomes acceptable, even enjoyable to watch. The sensual exchanges and erotic moments, especially between Vallier and Simon, have the potential of creating stunning, penetrating images. The romantic elements of Saint Sebastian, some of which are carried to the outer frames of Lilies as a whole, as suggested by the subtitle, truly allow Bouchard to push the limits with regards to the presentation of unbridled, fiery passion. Father Saint-Michel exploits romanticism for his own ends, and Simon in 1952 plays up this genre to disgust the Bishop, while Bouchard in the 80s uses the romantic elements overall to present honest, beautiful images of uninhibited homoerotic passion and gay expression on stage. Both the romantic elements and the past setting open acceptance towards the lovers' attempt to kill themselves as a testament of their ultimate love. Had the play been set outside of this context, the selfsacrifice would be harder to take and would likely come across as grotesque. At the same time, some critics indicate that revering the willingness to die for one's true love is a brave statement for a gay writer today, because of the entire AIDS question. As Robert Wallace points out, "En cette époque du SIDA, une telle affirmation-mourir par amour-est non seulement radicale mais courageuse, et on peut dire que seul un gai pouvait oser faire" (Jeu 54 32). Lilies in all its complexity also makes important commentary about the struggles of gay men to find fulfilment and acceptance in a homophobic society: although initially one might expect society to be more stifling at the height of Duplessism and in 1912, Bouchard's use of these time frames instead of a contemporary setting makes one consider that perhaps social attitudes towards homosexuality have not progressed as much as one would like to think.
The subtitle of Bouchard's Lilies, the Revival of a Romantic Drama, is extremely appropriate. By drawing one's attention to the use of revival by his characters and by himself, Bouchard emphasizes how theatre as a medium enables one to reconstruct one's past in an attempt to understand one's present situation. Because Lilies is such a self-consciously theatrical play, Bouchard reminds us that truth in theatre is presented through artifice, and is as much of a lie as it is reality. It is thus up to the audience to take away their own meaning from dramatic performance: as the characters within the plot make discoveries through their own theatricals, Bouchard presents his contemporary audience with alternative, empowering forms of gay expression on stage, while using the past to comment on issues worthy of consideration by both homo- and heterosexual society.
NOTES
1 The play's success in French and in English is described in a variety of sources, including
Lévesque 174,Lévesque and Pavlovic 152-153, Raynauld 168, and Wallace Producing
Marginality 213-216.
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2 This assumption is based on Gaboiiau's own description of her translation process; see
Gaboriau 45-48. She indicates that her first priority is to respect the author's original intent and
individual voice as much as possible. As a result, she makes a point of meeting with the writers
whose work she is translating and consulting them throughout the process
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3 See Doucette 171-173 and Larrue 91-96.
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4 I attended the touring French production of Lilies, les Feluettes, in the Studio of the National Arts Centre, Ottawa, in 1989. My memory of that particular production is supplemented by the articles by Uvesque, Uvesque and Pavlovic, Raynauld, and Salter.
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WORKS CITED
Bouchard, Michel Marc. Lilies. Trans. Linda Gaboriau. Toronto: Coach House Press, 1990.
Doucette, L.E. "Drama in French." The Oxford Companion to Canadian Theatre. Ed. Eugene Benson and L.W.Conolly. Toronto: Oxford, 1989. 171-173.
Gaboriau, Linda. "Traduire le génie de l'auteur." Cahiers de théâtre jeu 56 (septembre 1990): 43-48.
Larrue, Jean-Marc. Le théâtre à Montréal à la fin du XIXe siècle. Montréal: Fides, 1981.
Lévesque, Solange. "A propos des <<feluettes>>: questions et hypothèses." Cahiers de théâtre jeu 49 (décembre 1988): 174-179.
Lévesque, Solange, and Diane Pavlovic. "Comédiens et martyrs." Cahiers de théâtre jeu 49 (décembre 1988):152-167.
Raynauld, Isabelle. "<< les feluettes >>: aimer/tuer." Cahiers de théâtre jeu 49 (décembre 1988): 168-173.
Salter, Denis. "Order Minus Power." Canadian Theatre Review 55 (Summer 1988): 15-22.
"Sebastian." The Oxford Dictionary of the Saints. Ed. David Hugh Farmer. Oxford: Oxford, 1987.
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Ed. Sylvan Barnet. New York: Signet, 1963.
Wallace, Robert. "Homo création: pour une poétique du théâtre gai." trans. Jean Cléo Godin. Cahiers de théâtre jeu 54 (mars 1990): 24-42.
____, Producing Marginality. Saskatoon: Fifth House, 1990.