Antigone
in the Spring
By Nathalie Boisvert | Translated by Hugh Hazelton
During this current period of uncertainty, it is with a special gratitude to Canada Council for the Arts and a special pleasure to be able to suport freelance and independent artists. BoucheWHACKED! Theatre Collective New Translation commision series continues with the Govenor General Award nominated play Antigone in the Spring.
Francophone Canadian playwrighting is on forefront of international playwriting – their work is translated and presented all over the world. It is particularly hard to describe the unique “Langue D’Auteur” created by Francophone Canadian artists as there is nothing quite like it in Western English Language theatre. Imagine Shakespeare, Moliere, Sarah Kane and Martin Crimp smashed together on the page. The poetic or expressionistic are side by side with gritty realism and the mundane often becomes the fantastical. Ancient words, made up words, verse, prose, Joual (everyday Quebecois), other francophone dialects, all literary devices, often the live next to each other on the page.
“The Antigone of Nathalie Boisvert’s beautiful text is so close to us…It’s impossible not to feel contemporary resonance.” – Sorstu.ca
Antigone in the Spring
By Nathalie Boisvert | Translated by Hugh Hazelton
Translated from Antiogone au printemps (Quebec, Canada)
In this contemporary reimagining of Antigone, in a Montreal of now and myth, birds fall from the sky in the thousands and rot under the sun of an early spring. Antigone and her two brothers, Étéocle and Polynice, are swept up in the popular revolution rumbling through the city. Each must chooses a side: Polynice and Antigone join the protesters and the people, while Étéocle, joins the repressive forces of Creon and the State. During a riot, the two brothers clash and kill each other. Polynice’s body becomes evidence to incriminate the protesters. How can Antigone, despite all the obstacles, escape the fury of power? In times of unrest, how do you stay whole, and true?
Antigone au printemps was first produced in 2017 (Théâtre Fred-Barry) in Montreal by Le Dôme créations théâtrales, directed by Frédéric Sasseville-Painchaud. It received the Prix Émilie Augier from the Académie Française; and was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award for French Language Drama. In May 2019, it received a dramatic reading at the Teamtheatre Global Quebec event in Munich, Germany.
This translation was made possible by a grant from Canada Cousil for the Arts.
Running Time: 110 min
Characters: 1F | 2M
Original Production: Frédéric Millaire-Zouvi (left), Xavier Huard (right) and Léane Labrèche-Dor (centre)
Photo credit: @Francis Sercia
About the playwright
Nathalie Boisvert
(She, Her)
Nathalie Boisvert holds a bachelor’s degree in acting and a master’s degree in drama from the University of Quebec in Montreal (1993). In 1997, her first play, The Sordid Story of Conrad B., was performed at the Festival ide Spa (Belgium), remounted in Brussels and translated into English by Bobby Theodore. In 1999, her work, L’été des Martiens (Lansman),__ premiered simultaneously in Quebec (Théâtre Niveau Parking) and France (La Comédie de la Mandoune) and again produced simultaneously in 2006 in Dusseldorf (Landstheatre) and Berlin (Grips) in German translation by Frank Heibert. Translated into English by Bobby Theodore, it was also produced in 2002 by Theatre Direct (Toronto). In 2006, her play Vie et Mort d’un village, received lauréate des Journées de Lyon (Éditions Comp’Act) and she received le Prix Gratien-Gélinas in 2007 for Buffet chinois. Her Antigone au printemps was a finalist for the 2018 Governor General’s Award French Language Drama and received the Prix Émile-Augier.
About the translator
Hugh Hazelton
(He, Him)
Hugh Hazelton is a Montreal writer and translator who specializes in Quebec and Latin American literature. He has written four books of poetry, including Antimatter (Broken Jaw Press, 2nd edition, with CD, 2010), as well as Latinocanadá: A Critical Study of Ten Latin American Writers of Canada (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2007), which received the Best Book of the Year award from the Canadian Association of Hispanists. He has translated twenty works of poetry, theatre and fiction from French, Spanish and Portuguese into English. His latest translations are Volume I of the complete works of the Argentine avant-garde poet Oliverio Girondo (Wolsak & Wynn, 2018), and The Doorman of Windsor Station, a play by Julie Vincent (Playwrights Canada Press, 2017). His translation of Vétiver, a book of poems by Joël Des Rosiers, won the Governor General’s award for French-English translation in 2006. He is a professor emeritus of Spanish at Concordia University in Montreal and former co-director of the Banff International Literary Translation Centre. In 2016 he received the Linda Garboriau Award from the Banff Centre for his work on behalf of literary translation in Canada, and in 2018 he was awarded the Prix de poésie Lèvres urbaines by Les Écrits des Forges for his dedication to the advancement of poetry. He is an honorary member of the Literary Translators’ Association of Canada.
