Autour du Lactume
Martin Faucher and Markita Boies, with childlike seriousness – mocking but unfailingly sincere – offer a declaration of affectionate, radiant love for Réjean Ducharme.
Throughout his lifetime, Réjean Ducharme was present while remaining hidden. Such was his fate. Just after his death a new book suddenly appeared straight from his past: Le Lactume, 198 drawings accompanied by very Ducharmian captions. It had been sent to a publisher in 1966 and promptly forgotten. Returned to the writer in 2001, the drawings and captions were published in 2017, intact. And the presence of the wild and crazy 23-year-old Ducharme is palpable, drawing and commenting on his rebellions, observations and daydreams in a Quebec in the throes of social and political upheaval.
A long work table, five piles of drawings, music and, above all, the actress Markita Boies, a favourite of Ducharme. With a childlike seriousness, slightly mocking and unfailingly sincere, just what’s required to enter into Ducharme’s world, Martin Faucher has orchestrated a playful, poetic moment, radiant and affectionate and imbued with great love for life, death, art, beauty and the deceased writer.
Originally produced by éditions du passage
Executive producer Jamais Lu
Drawings and captions Réjean Ducharme
Collage, conceived and directed by Martin Faucher
Texts Réjean Ducharme + Pierre Corneille + Lautréamont + Émile Nelligan + Arthur Rimbaud
Performed by Markita Boies
Lighting Design, Director Assistant and Stage Manager Samuel Patenaude
Video Sandrick Mathurin
Written by Paul Lefebvre
Translated by Neil Kroetsch
Presented in association with avec La Chapelle Scènes Contemporaines + Festival international de la littérature
Premiered at Festival international de la littérature, on September 23, 2017
Réjean Ducharme + Martin Faucher (Montreal)
More than fifty years after the publication of L’avalée des avalés (1966), followed by the novels Le nez qui voque, L’océantume, La fille de Christophe Colomb and L’hiver de force, the work of Réjean Ducharme has never stopped being read and reread. With narrators whose misdemeanours against language and the world present childhood as a territory of resistance against a life stunted by « adultness », his novels had a profound impact on Quebec literature and culture.
