Quebec’s Theater of Liberation

Quebec’s Theater of Liberation Edwin Joseph Hamblet When Gratien Gélinas’ Tit-Coq opened on May 22, 1948, at the Monument National in Montreal, little did the versatile French-Canadian playwright realize what the repercussions would be. Tit-Coq ran for over two hundred performances and marked the beginning of a theater intrinsically French-Canadian in character. The successful play about the trials and tribula­ tions of a hapless French-Canadian soldier paved the way for a dozen dramatists who were to contribute to the renascence of a highly dynamic theater in French Canada. The renewal has been so astonishing that Montreal now ranks only after Paris and Brussels in dramatic productions in the French-speaking world. Approximately forty plays are staged in French each year in Montreal, making it second only to New York in North America in the number and quality of its stage performances. French-Canadian chansonniers, poet-singers who compose their own lyrics and music, have long had the reputation of reflecting the aspirations of their nationalistic compatriots. In­ deed, they have contributed greatly toward orienting the na­ tionalist sentiments of their followers and have been vociferous in their demands for justice for the French-Canadian people. Chansonniers Pauline Julien, Monique Leyrac, Claude Léveillée and Jean-Pierre Ferland have achieved recognition and wide ac­ claim in Europe. Yet, another group of artists in French Cana­ da, notably the emerging dramatists, have also been eloquent witnesses to Quebec’s struggle for liberation, whether it be psychological, economic, social, linguistic or political. Charles DeGaulle’s cry of “Vive le Québec libre!” from the balcony of Montreal’s city hall in 1967 unleashed such a furor in English Canada that it obscured the fact that this very slogan of the French-Canadian separatists has long been a major concern to that society’s playwrights, who have been highly articulate as advocates of “liberation” for their people. 70 Edwin Joseph Hamblet 71 The drama of Gratien Gélinas, Marcel Dubé, Jacques Ferron , Françoise Loranger, Robert Gurik, and Michel Tremblay attests to the vibrant nationalism that is rampant today in French Canada. Their drama also reveals that the actual climate is rather complex and cannot be reduced to simplistic terms. In­ deed, “liberation” is used by each one of these playwrights in a different context. The “liberation” that they claim for their fellow French Canadians is many-faceted. It is not simply a question of black and white, with the forces of good (the French Canadians) pitted against the forces of evil (the English), as so many outside observers would seem to think. The FrenchCanadian theater of liberation advocates first of all self-analysis and criticism with no recourse to self-pity, nostalgia, sentimental­ ity, or withdrawal. The contemporary French-Canadian drama­ tists seek to cure the split personality from which the masses suffer in their present identity crisis; they also forcefully attack what they consider the myth of bilingualism, a one way bilingu­ alism that in their eyes has left the lower classes linguistically impoverished; and they insist on the priority of the French lan­ guage as the sole legitimate vehicle of expression within Quebec. Finally, some of the playwrights even proclaim a sovereign Que­ bec and speak of “la nation canadienne-française.” This present discussion will examine some of the connotations of “liberation” as they pertain to the works and philosophies of the major con­ temporary French-Canadian dramatists. The psychological, linguistic and political aspects of the question are clearly mani­ fest in their drama and conversation. And it should be noted that the primary concern of French Canada’s theater of libera­ tion is the individual and not abstract ideals. It is a theater es­ sentially oriented to the average French Canadian, the man in the street, whose pedestrian life is often forgotten and ignored because it is supposedly of little dramatic interest. Quebec’s révolution tranquille began slowly during the final days of Premier Maurice Duplessis’ regime. Marcel Dubé was then one of the unofficial spokesmen on the Montreal stage as the astute observer of the psychological liberation of the young­ er generations of French Canadians. Dubé believed that his...