Le Père Emile Legault et ses Compagnons de saint Laurent by Héléne Jasmin-Bélisle (review)

HUMANITIES 189 mediately tempered with the first pages of his real text. This chapter is devoted to the 'New Realism of Michel Tremblay,' for it is from Les Belles-Seeurs that Weiss dates the true birth of French-Canadian theatre. This chapter (pp 27-76), which includes treatment of Jean Barbeau and Michel Garneau, is an excellent synthesis of recent critical studies on the three authors, sensitively analysed in terms of the political climate in the years between the foundation of the Parti quebecois in 1968 and that party's electoral victory eight years later. The next chapter, devoted to 'The Deadly Games of Rejean Ducharme,' is quite simply the most lucid study I have yet read on this author and his work. Chapter 4 deals with Antonine Maillet and Jean-Claude Germain, unrewardingly on the former , brilliantly on the latter. Chapter 5 groups, in sometimes Procustean fashion, Fran~oise Loranger, Robert Gurik, and Jacques Ferron, in 'The Theater of Politicstrhe Politics of Theater.' It too makes lively reading, despite a resurgence of the problems in historical perspective earlier alluded to (the Felix Poutre in Ferron's Les Grands Soleils is referred to as 'a habitant who was the subject of an eighteenth-century play'). The last chapter is entitled 'The End of an Era in Quebec Theater,' serving as a conclusion to the volume and affirming a position that, one short year later, already appears dated: that the stage in Quebec is currently moribund , consumed perhaps by its own omnivorous energy .. . Weiss has produced an eminently useful volume, stimulating and informative for scholars (at least in its treatment of contemporary theatre), and, with the same reservation, a first-class manual for students. His Bibliography is brief but helpful, especially for the American readers for whom this text is primarily intended. One final remark on both volumes: their bibliographies include leu, Canadian Drama, and The Canadian Theatrical Review, but both omit Theatre History in Canada/Histoire du thedtre au Canada, the only journal explicitly devoted to the history of Canada's stage. While admitting special interest (the reviewer is currently coeditor of the latter journal), I submit that both authors' historical perspectives on the evolution of Canadian theatre in French would be much improved by its perusal. (L.E. DOUCFITE) Helene Jasmin-Belisle. Le Pere Emile Legault el ses Compagnons de saini lAurenl Lemeac. 205. $15.95 brocM 'Une petite histoire: Interviews, recherche, redaction,' ajoute Helene Jasmin-Belisle en sous-titre, comme pour s'excuser de l'allure peu 'academique' de ce beau petit volume. Precisons: les interviews et la redaction s'averent bien superieures ala recherche. Le premier chapitre nous offre un survol rapide du theatre au Quebec vers '937, suivi d'un competent resume des principales influences fran~aises (Gheon, Brochet, Copeau et Ie Cartel) sur celui qui animerait pendant quinze ans la troupe 190 LETTERS IN CANADA 1986 seminale des Compagnons. Ensuite I'histoire, anecdotique mais plus ou moins chronologique, de Legault et ses co-equipiers. Pour la reconstruire l'auteure tire admirablement parti des interviews accordees par une vingtaine d'anciens membres de la troupe. Prise par la suite des evenements et des saisons, elle perd rapidement la perspective plus large etablie dans son excellent premier chapitre. Ainsi sedefiJeront atravers ses pages les noms et les visages (les photographies, retrouvees aux Archives des peres de Sainte-Croix, sont nombreuses et eloquentes, bon nombre reproduites ici pour la premiere fois) de cette centaine de jeunes - et de moins jeunes - enthousiastes de la scene, dont beaucoup continuent a anirner aujourd'hui la vie artistique du pays (aucun index, helas! pour faciJiter aux chercheurs la tache de recuperation : la maison Lemeac ne semble plus y croire). Bilan: un texte agreable, peu exigeant, tres interessant alire. A lire entre les Iignes, on decouvre ici un pere Legault aux dimensions bien plus humaines que ne l'etait Ie 'mage' depeint par certains. Ses 'coleres bleues: ses insouciances allant parfois jusqu'a la rudesse, les carences de son savoir en matiere theatrale, son empressement a 'couper' dans les textes, meme cJassiques, tout cela fait partie integrante de ce portrait. Produit de I'age d'or de l'esthE'tique thMtrale que connut...