Théâtre Le Clou presents on Thursday the fruit of the 5th version of its writing incubator Scriptarium, focused this year on justice. Under the supervision of the Honorable Louise Arbor, ten high school students wrote texts adapted to the plays. The article describes personnel pleading their imaginary reasons before an unaffected tribunal.
ang Scriptarium came to replace five years ago The Zurbansa show and a writing laboratory created in 1997 by the Théâtre Le Clou to give a voice to teenagers through fictional stories only.
The main idea remains the same: put on a play with texts written by students from secondary 3 to 5, based on a theme developed with the curator of the year, i.e., a personality that inspires Quebecer from the artistic or other environment.
Since 2018, Théâtre Le Clou has, for example, hosted actors Stéphane Crête and Didier Lucien, former Montreal Museum of Fine Arts director Nathalie Bondil, as well as author and columnist Manal Drissi.
This year, the team Scriptarium appealed to a luminary of the legal world in the person of Louise Arbor, a notable judge in the Supreme Court of Canada and United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
A reflection on the judiciary system
I find it pretty insane to see how people treat the justice system. I continue to think that the justice system in Canada is exemplary in many respects. This was confirmed by Ms. Arbor: we update ourselves, we vary the judgment of cases because of new values, we often ask ourselvesexplained Monique Gosselin, co-founder and co-artistic director of Théâtre Le Clou, as well as director of Scriptarium.
So I left with the idea that if one day we decided to do it in the public plaza, it would be dangerous, we would go back to medieval times.
After visiting more than fifty secondary schools in Montreal and Quebec City to speak with Louise Arbor, the Scriptarium team asked students to write a text on the theme of justice. The idea is to create a character who will speak to defend an imaginary cause or accuse another character.
Students then voted for the 10 best texts in their respective classes, reviewed by Monique Gosselin and playwright Éric Noël. Of the approximately 500 texts submitted, only ten were selected for adaptation into a play.
Texts of unexpected depth
Each text, reproduced by Monique Gosselin and Éric Noël, will take the form of an exhibit displayed in front of an obsolete court. The imaginary reasons will be defended or attacked by four professional interpreters: Yann Aspirot, Maude Bouchard, Geneviève Labelle, Félix Lahaye.
Monique Gosselin was amazed at the maturity of the students and the depth of some of the topics they chose to explore. One of them chose to present the pieces of a chess game that wanted to sue their creator.
For example, why do white people resist black people? Why is the Queen forced to do everything while her husband is asleep? They make the pass to their creator to seek justicehe explained.
In another text, a teenager chose to sue a racist hotel manager who refused to accept an Aboriginal woman who died in the cold shortly after in the establishment’s parking lot.
But the group’s most refined text, according to Monique Gosselin, is about a teenager who decided to side with Carl Girouard, the author of the saber attack in Old Quebec that killed two people on October 31, 2020. . It’s very dangerous, because we’re going to play that in Quebecexplanation of the director.
In fact, it is the sword that is coming to speak [pour défendre son propriétaire]. He said “listen, I have a friend taking care of me and one day he dressed up as a samurai. But he wasn’t that night.” This thesis of double personality was presented by the defendant himself on the first day of his defense.
ang Scriptarium 2022 will be shown at the Salle Fred-Barry of the Théâtre Denise-Pelletier, from April 28 to May 6. The play will be shown at the Théâtre jeunesse Les Gros Becs in Quebec City, from May 11 to 13.
Source: Radio-Canada
