” …Tremblay’s pen cries out, whispers, and is always poetic and full of life, death, and music.”
François Dallaire, Être en ligne
BoucheWHACKED! Theatre Collective
In association with UpintheAir Theatre
English Language Premiere
CHILD OBJECT (L’ENFANT MATIÈRE)
By Larry Tremblay | Translated by Chantal Bilodeau
Directed by Gilles Poulin-Denis
Featuring Art Kitching
With child as a blank page, a man sets about constructing his ideal companion manipulating personality, gender and body. The child becomes the ultimate consumer good.
Where: The Cultch | The Vancity Culture Lab, 1895 Venables St
Tickets: Pay What You Can at the Door
About the playwright
Larry Tremblay is a writer, director, actor and kathakali specialist. He is the author of more than twenty books and is one of Quebec’s most produced and most translated playwrights. His work is noted for the diversity of genres it explores. In 2001 his play The Ventriloquist had three separate productions, in Paris, Brussels and Montreal. The Montreal production, under the direction of Claude Poissant, garnered six “Gala des Masques” nominations, including Best New Play, and won the Masque for Best Production. The Ventriloquist, already translated into eight languages, has had recent productions in Turino, Mexico, Toronto, Ottawa, Bucarest and London (U.K.). Thanks to an uninterrupted succession of new plays (Anatomy Lesson, Ogre, The Dragonfly of Chicoutimi, The Genie of Drolet Street, Blue Hands, Soap, Bagpipes, Panda Panda…) Tremblay’s work continues to achieve international recognition. A Chair in love created with composer John Metcalf was the fourth of his works presented on stage in Montreal in 2006, following Three Seconds when the Seine Stopped Flowing, The Story of a Heart, and The Axe which he also directed. In 2007 he shared the stage with Carl Béchard performing in two of his shorter plays The Decline of Destiny and The Trouble with Me. His novel The Bicycle Eater, published by Leméac, was unanimously saluted by the critics, won the Prix Roman 2003 at the Salon du Livres in Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean and was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award. In 2006 he was awarded the Canada Council Victor-Martyn-Lynch-Staunton Prize for his contribution to the theatre. Gallimard Paris published Piercing, a collection of three of his short stories. In 2008, Abraham Lincoln Goes to the Theatre premiered at Espace Go in Montreal, directed by Claude Poissant (Théâtre Pàp), and was nominated for Best Production 2007-2008 (Montreal) by the Quebec Critics Association. Larry Tremblay was finalist in 2008 and in 2011 for the Siminovitch Prize. In 2010, Alberta Theatre Project produced at Calgary Abraham Lincoln Goes the Theatre, translated by Chantal Bilodeau, under the direction of Bob White. The same year, his play The Dragonfly of Chicoutimi was directed by Claude Poissant at the Festival TransAmériques (FTA), in Montreal. In 2012, SACD (Société des auteurs et compositeurs dramatiques), in partnership with France Culture, awarded his play, War Cantata, the Prix SADC for best world play written in French and CEAD (Centre des auteurs dramatiques) awarded it the Le Prix Michel- Tremblay for the best play written in Quebec in 2012. Still in 2012, his play Child Object was staged in Quebec City by Christian Lapointe. Apart from his plays, Larry Tremblay published recently two novels highly acclaimed, The Obese Christ and The Orange Grove.
About the translator
Chantal Bilodeau is a Montreal-born, New York-based playwright and translator whose work focuses on the intersection of science, policy, art, and climate change. She is the Artistic Director of The Arctic Cycle, an organization that uses theatre to foster conversation about our global climate crisis, create an empowering vision of the future, and encourage people to take action. Awards include the Woodward International Playwriting Prize as well as First Prize in the Earth Matters on Stage Ecodrama Festival and the Uprising National Playwriting Competition. Her plays and translations have been presented in a dozen countries around the world. Her translations include over twenty plays by contemporary playwrights Sébastien David (Quebec), Mohamed Kacimi (Algeria), Koffi Kwahulé (Côte d’Ivoire), Catherine Léger (Quebec), Étienne Lepage (Quebec), David Paquet (Quebec), and Larry Tremblay (Quebec). She was recently name one of “8 Trailblazers Who Are Changing the Climate Conversation” by Audubon Magazine
Special thank you to
