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Articles

Volume 33, Number 2 (2012)

La Maculée1 de Madeleine Blais-Dahlem : une écriture dramaturgique véridique, ludique et transgressive

Submitted
May 24, 2013
Published
2012-06-06

Abstract

La Maculée/sTain (2011), the most recent play by fransaskoise playwright Madeleine Blais-Dahlem, dramatises the difficult and painful condition of a young francophone woman who moved with her new husband to rural Saskatatchewan around 1920. Her suffering is caused by her abusive husband, the difficulty of maintaining her Catholic faith, and the galloping wave of anglicisation in the Canadian West. This anglicisation has brought with it the layers of culture and the alienating institutions of a modern capitalist society, including an aggressively evangelical Protestantism. The richness and originality of the theatrical languages used by Blais-Dahlem take full advantage of the esthetic potential that can be derived from bilingualism and, at the same time, reveal the actuality of themes that are simultaneously specific and universal: solitude, exile, fear, loss of faith and language, poverty, misogyny, violence done to women. The sustained policy of the professional theatre company, the Troupe du Jour of Saskatoon, which gives priority to the encouragement of fransaskoise dramaturgy played a major role in the artistic success of La Maculée. This is a policy revolving around the activities of the Cercle des écrivains (the Writer’s Circle), in which a team of colleagues share their creative energy through workshops and dramatic readings.