Bouche Theatre Collective

Speak Beyond Language

The Desert

By Olivier Sylvestre | Translated by Leanna Brodie

Running Time:
1 hr 15 min

Characters:
1 M

This translation was made possible by a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts.

The Desert

By Olivier Sylvestre
Translated by Leanna Brodie
Translated from Le désert (Quebec, Canada)

“…the playwright holds us in suspense, plunges us into the narrator’s disarray, his helplessness in the face of all he is experiencing. Beautiful and mesmerizing!”
Camille Gauthier, Les libraires craquent

Why am I still in your bed? And will I be here tomorrow? This poetic and physical solo performance speaks of addiction, and also of disorientation… the kind that comes when you’re high; when you wake up in the middle of the night; when love is leaving you. Le désert premiered to critical acclaim at Théâtre Prospero in 2018 and was published – in a beautiful format that highlights its surreal and poetic quality – by Hamac in 2019.

About the playwright

Olivier Sylvestre

Olivier Sylvestre (il, he, him, his) is a Canadian writer from Quebec. He is most noted for his first theatrical play La beauté du monde, which won the Prix Gratien-Gélinas and was a shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award for French-language drama at the 2015 Governor General’s Awards, and his short story collection Noms fictifs, which was a shortlisted finalist for the Governor General’s Award for French-language fiction at the 2018 Governor General’s Awards.

Sylvestre holds a bachelor’s degree in criminology, and a diploma in playwriting from the National Theatre School of Canada. He was translated into English by Leanna Brodie. His monologue Le désert was premiered in January 2018 at Théâtre Prospero in a production by Le Dôme – creations théâtrales, a company Sylvestre co-leads. His play La loi de la gravité, Éditions Passages(s), has won numerous awards in Europe and was translated into English by Bobby Theodore. He has translated several plays by Canadian playwrights, Jesse Stong’s You Can Do Whatever You Want and Waawaate Fobister’s Agokwe.

His other plays have included Guide d’éducation sexuelle pour le nouveau millénaire.

His play La loi de la gravité was translated into German Das Gesetz der Schwerkraft by Sonja Finck (Gatineau) and performed at the Theaterfestival Primeur in Saarbrücken in 2016.

About the translator

Leanna Brodie

Leanna Brodie (she, her, hers) is an actor, playwright, and translator whose passions include championing a new generation of French-Canadian playwrights and transmitting their extraordinary theatrical visions into the English language. Her original plays THE VIC, FOR HOME AND COUNTRY, THE BOOK OF ESTHER, and SCHOOLHOUSE have been published by Talonbooks and performed across Canada. Her translations include works by Christian Bégin, Louise Bombardier, Annie Brocoli, Rébecca Déraspe, Hélène Ducharme, Sébastien Harrisson, Angela Konrad, Catherine Léger, David Paquet, Anaïs Pellin, Gilles Poulin-Denis, Philippe Soldevila, Olivier Sylvestre, and Larry Tremblay. The 2021-22 season sees the premieres of three of her translations: Rébecca Déraspe’s I AM WILLIAM (Stratford Festival and Théâtre le Clou); Mohsen El Gharbi’s OMI MOUNA (Infinithéâtre); and David Paquet’s WILDFIRE (Factory Theatre, CANADIAN PREMIERE). www.leannabrodie.com

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