≈ 1 hour and 50 minutes · No intermission
Last updated: April 24, 2024
Message from Porte Parole’s Dramaturg and Artistic Director
Three years ago, Maude Laurendeau arrived in my office, driven by a strong sense of urgency. She read me passages from documents she had collected in the months after her daughter was diagnosed with autism. It was then that I realized Maude was trying to impose order on a real and extremely chaotic experience. She had turned to documentary theatre as a way of framing her reality.
Maude’s sense of urgency spoke to me that day because I too am often confused by reality these days. Her description of Rose also resonated with me. Although I’m neurotypical, I’m sometimes unable to single out the important messages in the mass of information I receive every day. They get lost in the excessive background noise. And sometimes I feel like running away, far, far away, all by myself, to escape the pressures of society’s expectations.
I commend Maude for her courage in bringing such a personal story to the stage, and I thank the artists and the production team for sharing their talents and insights to support Maude in her creative process.
I hope you will be moved by this piece of documentary theatre from Porte Parole, and that you will hear in it the same urgent and heartfelt call that runs through all our productions: a call to join us in a conversation about our harsh yet wonderful world.
Message from the Director
Directing a documentary play requires more from you than the usual process. The heart of the project beats furiously in the person who has done the research, especially when that research has a direct connection to their own life. Taking care of the show then takes on a whole new meaning.
You have to facilitate, support, show. I wanted to take as much off Maude’s shoulders as I could, to construct a world she could navigate, a world that was sensitive and supportive, that she could cling to while she was talking to you. Because what matters most is the contact between Maude and you—that a solid and honest listening channel be established between you. What Maude has to say is rooted in her personal experience as a mother, but its ramifications affect all of us. We live in the same world, we’re prisoners of the same systems born of good intentions, machines that have lost their soul by focusing on performance rather than the human dimension.
Maude has the courage to tell her story, to bear witness not only to her journey through these systems, but also to her relationship with her daughter’s autism. There are many battles, and they’re not over. Most of us would have stayed at home, loving our family, unable to do anything else, crushed by the weight of these tortuous processes, these madhouses. Maude, on the other hand, has found the energy, despite the daily demands, despite the constant changes, to walk towards us; to write, to bear witness, to be here with us tonight. I applaud her strength, and I hope it will inspire others to follow in her footsteps. I hope Maude’s generous story will be one of the sparks we all need to look at ourselves honestly, to recognize ourselves and to grow.
Synopsis
Parenting has many challenges, and a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) increases them tenfold. When the diagnosis was confirmed, Maude tried to understand and support her daughter. But she quickly realized that she was going to have to deal with enormous difficulties.
An open look at difference
As Maude documented her exhausting search for resources and the endless waiting lists, she learned about the limitations of the system. And she gradually became aware of her own limitations. How could she best listen to and understand her daughter? How could she help Rose while accepting her difference? What could she learn from this difference?
“For a few days now, I’ve been looking at you differently. It’s as if my reading has robbed you of everything I love about you; as if your disorder dictates your every move, sums you up, swallows you. Even my memories seem false.”
Delving into a misunderstood spectrum
Along the way, Maude Laurendeau met a host of specialists, parents and relatives of autistic children, all portrayed in the play by actor Julie Le Breton. Gradually, through discussion and questioning, but also simply by living each day with Rose, a form of understanding and acceptance began to emerge. After the initial shock and emotional turmoil triggered by the diagnosis wore off, the suspended particles began to settle. Slowly, behind the black beast of ASD, Maude was reunited with her child.
“With my daughter, there came a point when I accepted that I’m not the one holding her hand to take her somewhere. She’s the one showing me the way and teaching me at her own pace.”
A call to change perceptions about autism and neuroatypia
Driven by the need to change things, Maude began to write. She started by pointing out the shortcomings of our infrastructure, but gradually the urgency turned into a strong desire to depict her lived experience from the inside, and to change perceptions about autism in a significant way.
In this interview with Porte Parole, Maude Laurendeau talks about her motivation and the creative process behind Rose in the Machine.
Interview with author Maude Laurendeau
In this interview with Porte Parole, Maude Laurendeau talks about her motivation and the creative process behind Rose in the Machine.
What led you to undertake this project?
I was in a state of emotional turmoil. It’s truly an uphill battle: trying to get help and resources that just aren’t there, and trying to understand your child through it all ... You run up against a lot of refusals and a lot of absurdities. You quickly discover the limitations of the system and what doesn’t work well, which gets a bit alienating. That’s what prompted me to write: the need to speak out and call attention to this reality, and to change things.
It started with “We have to change the system, it doesn’t make any sense.” But now there’s a sense that my daughter is better integrated into our society, that she’s a little citizen in her own right and an entity in the world, which was less the case when she was three. So today I feel a greater urgency to change the way we perceive who and what she is. And I have more power over that. It’s more doable than changing systems.
My sense of urgency has changed; it’s not the same. My priority now is to change perceptions.
What have you learned in the process of writing this play?
From the moment I started writing, it was as if I’d gained the distance necessary to deepen my knowledge of autism. I wasn’t just learning things for myself in relation to my child, but with the intention of sharing them with others. It seemed to make things easier to grasp.
When you get the diagnosis, you get so little support, so little information that your first instinct is to turn to the internet ... and it’s a jungle! There’s so much out there. You start reading about the challenges your child will face at 35, which is absurd: you shouldn’t project yourself so far into the future when you know from the start how bumpy the road ahead is going to be! It’s as if you sat down and said to yourself, “Let’s see, today I’m going to read about the cancers my children might get in their lives.” That’s no way to live!
With my daughter, I’ve come to accept that I’m not the one holding her hand to take her somewhere. She’s the one showing me the way and teaching me at her own pace. There’s no point in projecting or imagining what’s going to happen, because I’m always surprised.
You turned to Porte Parole quite early in the process. Why was that?
I think when I first approached Annabel it was more of a cry for help than a project pitch! [laughs] Looking back, I think she just gave me the tools, including a simple voice recorder, to start giving myself a structure and moving towards what was going to help me, save me, get me out of the rut I was in. That recorder was a lifeline!
Annabel has always spoken out against the unfairness and absurdities of the system, and in a way I think I went to her to validate my sense of injustice. I didn’t have any other outlet.
The system always makes you feel that this is how things are and that there are no other options. I guess I needed to turn to someone who had enough perspective on society to say, “You’re right, it doesn’t make sense.”
And also—this may be a bit naïve–I felt that by going with documentary theatre, I’d have a stage and a microphone in front of me two weeks later to express myself; that I’d be able to meet people and say “this doesn’t make sense.” I’d chosen to disregard the fact that it was going to take three years ...
Do you sometimes wonder why you took on such a demanding project?
Absolutely! I ask myself that every day. Especially at the moment, because my daughter is doing really well: a lot of things have fallen into place. And I’d like to be able to enjoy that without having to recall all the difficult moments every day ...
I think I underestimated the emotional implications, the fact that the show meant I would have to relive painful moments. I think the play moves towards the light, but we go through a lot of darkness to get there. And even when the story moves away from my own experience, which it often does in the show, the subject matter is never external to me.
But every time I talk to parents who are going through the same thing, to people who are dealing with this every day, I’m immediately reminded of the urgent need to do something. Every time, I say to myself, “This is why I started writing. And nothing has changed, so it’s important to keep going.” On the other hand, I’m also constantly reminded that nothing has changed, and everyone tells me it never will. So I sometimes ask myself, “Will I really be the one to make things happen?” I navigate between those two extremes.
Did you hope writing would help you understand your daughter better?
No, not at all. I wasn’t looking at writing as a way to understand her better—and in fact, the research I’m doing isn’t about autism. It’s more about the health and education systems, the professionals who work in them, the parents ...
Autism is a spectrum; there are as many forms of autism as there are autistic people. It’s very complex. So I don’t think I could have written a play about autism as such. And as a neurotypical person, what I might have said wouldn’t have been representative.
But the project led me to meet people who changed my perception of what autism is. Now, when I look at my child, I no longer see an autistic child. I see my daughter for who she is.
When you get a diagnosis, your child becomes that diagnosis. My mission became to give my daughter everything she needed to be able to function in our society one day. Because what I was told was that she would never be able to do that.
Maybe what writing the play gave me was an awareness of my own limitations. I realized I hadn’t helped my daughter at all by reacting badly at the beginning. And part of that shock is my own fault, because of my limitations as a human being who has to deal with difference. I think the writing process and all the people I met helped me reposition myself and see things differently.
The play is about my thought process. I’m not trying to show all sides of an issue, I’m showing the evolution of my thinking. And through that I think you can see different facets and different possible angles, different ways of experiencing it, because I’ve been there.
Thank you
Porte Parole would like to personally thank everyone who was interviewed by Maude Laurendeau as part of the research that led to the creation of Rose in the Machine. Their generosity and openness contributed to our discussions and made the creation of this play possible. Special thanks to Jérémie Dufour and Maëlle Adenot.
Porte Parole would also like to thank the Conseil des arts de Montréal, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the Canada Council for the Arts, the Théâtre Duceppe team, the Théâtre Espace GO team, the Théâtre de la Ville, Productions Spectrum, and Jasmine Catudal.
Finally, Porte Parole would like to thank Claire Léger and the Fondation Famille Léger, Andrew Molson, and all our donors, without whom we could not continue our activities. We would also like to thank the members of Porte Parole’s board of directors: Matthieu Sauvé, François Prénovost, François Lemoine, Lili de Granpré, Anne Emanueli, Mathieu Johnson, Mary-Dailey Desmarais and Fortunat Nadima Nadima; and of course the members of the External Development Committee: Judy Martin, Leslie Raenden, DeliaCristea and Alexandra Bonnefoy.
Maude Laurendeau
Thank you to everyone I interviewed as part of this project. Your words, your stories are a big part of the reason I want this text to be heard. Thank you for sharing them with me.
Thank you to Annabel Soutar for giving me a helping hand (and a voice recorder) at a time when nothing made sense any more. Thank you for lighting my dramaturgical path so brightly for the past four years,
Thank you to Julie Le Breton, Édith Patenaude and Caroline Boucher-Boudreau for supporting this project so wholeheartedly and generously, for believing in it and giving me confidence.
Thank you to the entire creative team behind Rose in the Machine for your inspired work! Thank you for making my text so resonant, for giving it depth, for adding your sensitivity, your nuances, your colours.
Thank you to the Porte Parole team for going above and beyond to ensure that our cries from the heart are heard; thank you for giving life to our projects and for defending them so well.
Thank you to the Duceppe team for giving us such a wonderful venue, a solid launch pad.
Thank you to Raphaël Roussel, Delphine Bienvenu and Fred Lavallée for your listening ears, your advice and your generous hearts.
Thank you to my family, my in-laws, and my precious friends for your wise words and your encouragement, but most of all, for forming such a strong community around Rose and looking out for her happiness.
Thank you to all the early childhood educators, child psychologists, social workers, speech therapists, occupational therapists, daycare educators, special education technicians, remedial educators and teachers who have worked and continue to work with Rose. Thank you for seeing beyond the diagnoses, for relentlessly searching for the keys to the development of the little human beings around you, for inventing the tools and resources you lack. You weave beautiful humanity!
Thank you to Rose, Estelle and Den for always keeping me grounded. Without you, none of this would be possible.
And of course thanks to you, our indispensable audience.
In this world where everything moves so fast, thank you for taking time to come and reflect with me, with us.
Thank you for being here.
I can’t wait to meet you.
Artists
Annabel Soutar is a Montreal-based playwright and theatre producer. In 2000, she co-founded, with Alex Ivanovici, Porte Parole Productions whose mission is to produce entertaining documentary plays which create a transformational sense of civic engagement in its audiences. Annabel studied Theatre at Princeton University. Since 1998, she has written eight plays including Seeds, Sexy béton, The Watershed and Fredy. In 2015, The Globe and Mail named Soutar on its list of Artists of the Year. The Assembly, her recent collaboration with co-writers Alex Ivanovici and Brett Watson, will tour in the U.S., Europe and South America in 2020–23.
After graduating in 2006 from the Conservatoire d’art dramatique de Québec, Édith Patenaude immediately launched herself into creating new work. With Les Écornifleuses theatre company, where she is the artistic director, she performed in Cinq filles avec la même robe, Les Reines, and the Le Désordre station of the ambulatory performance piece Où tu vas quand tu dors en marchant…? — the latter two were presented at the Carrefour international de théâtre in Québec; wrote and performed in Barbe Bleue; co-wrote (with Jocelyn Pelletier) Disparaître Ici, loosely based on the works of Bret Easton Ellis, presented at Théâtre Périscope and La Chapelle; and wrote, directed and performed in Le monde sera meilleur at Périscope. She also directed David Hare’s L’Absence de guerre (The Absence of War), which was remounted by Théâtre du Trident and La Licorne and won the Quebec Ministry of Arts and Culture award for Best Direction. She has performed in numerous productions by other companies (Trident, Bordée, Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui, Espace Libre, etc.), notably in Thérèse et Pierrette à l’école des Saints-Anges, Inès Pérée et Inat Tendu, Selfie, Tout ce qui tombe and Scalpés. She also participated in the creation of iShow, winner of the Critics’ Choice award for Best Production – Montreal and widely presented in Canada and France. From 2012 to 2015, she was the artistic director of the Québec edition of the Jamais Lu new play festival. She directed the remount of Mes enfants n’ont pas peur du noir at Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui, and the stage adaptation of the cult novel 1984, coproduced by Théâtre du Trident and Théâtre Denise-Pelletier. At Zones Théâtrales 2017, she is directing Far Away.
From her very first film appearance in Ricardo Trogi’s Québec-Montréal (2002), Julie Le Breton has established herself as one of Quebec’s most talented and popular actors. Twice crowned Female Personality of the Year at the Artis Gala (2020 and 2021), she shines just as brightly in film and television as she does on stage.
A firm favourite with audiences, she played Julie in TVA’s Les beaux malaises, a role for which she won the Gémeaux Award for Best Lead Female Actor: Comedy (2014 to 2016) and the Artis Award for Best Female Actor: Comedy (2015, 2016 and 2021). Since 1998, she has appeared in over 20 television projects, including Les pays d’en haut (2015–20), Épidémie (2019), Victor Lessard (2017–19), Mauvais karma (2010–12), and Minuit le soir (2003–04).
More recently, Julie starred in the first TV series directed by Xavier Dolan, La nuit où Laurier Gaudreault s’est réveillé, broadcast on Club illico and based on the play of the same name by Michel Marc Bouchard; in the series, she reprised her role as Mireille, the thanatologist she played in the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde stage production in 2019. She played Roxane in the Club illico TV series IXE-13 (2023), alongside Marc-André Grondin and Vincent Leclerc.
On the big screen, Julie won a 2007 Génie Award (Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role) for her performance as Lucille Richard in Charles Binamé’s film Maurice Richard. She has appeared in several other successful Quebec films, including De père en flic 2 (2017), Paul à Québec (2014), and Starbuck (2010), and co-starred in director Éric Tessier’s feature film Tu te souviendras de moi (2022), alongside Rémy Girard and David Boutin.
In winter 2022, Julie, whose stage credits include Rose et la machine (Théâtre Jean-Duceppe, 2021) and Vol au-dessus d’un nid de coucou (Théâtre du Rideau Vert, 2017), performed her first solo show at Espace GO in Les dix commandements de Dorothy Dix (written by Stéphanie Jasmin and directed by Denis Marleau); her portrayal of this 20th-century woman’s life earned her the 2021–22 Prix de la critique, and La Presse wrote that she “gave possibly the greatest performance of her career.” In June 2022, she performed the show at the Théâtre National de la Colline in Paris. Later that year, also at Espace GO, she appeared in La fureur de ce que je pense, a play by Sophie Cadieux based on the work of Nelly Arcan and directed by Marie Brassard.
Credits
Author
Maude Laurendeau
Director
Édith Patenaude
Dramaturgy
Annabel Soutar
With
Maude Laurendeau et Julie Le Breton
Assistant Director
Caroline Boucher-Boudreau
Production Design
Patrice Charbonneau-Brunelle
Assistant Production Designer
Margot Lacoste
Lighting
Julie Basse
Sound Design
Frédéric Auger
Costumes
Estelle Charron
Technical Director
Normand Vincent
Production Director
Merissa Tordjman
Technical Director (touring)
Jean Duchesneau
Stage Manager and Lighting (touring)
Ariane Roy
Sound Design (touring)
Frédéric Auger
Production
Porte Parole
International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees
Projectionists, Wardrobe Mistresses, Masters and Attendants are members of International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local 471.
NAC Production Team
Head Carpenter
Charles Martin
Head Properties
Michel Sanscartier
Head Electrician
Eric Tessier
Assistant Electrician
Martin Racette
Head Audio
Doug Millar
Assistant Audio
Sarah Waghorn
Head Wardrobe
Linda Dufresne
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Lead Donor
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Official Hotel Partner
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Supporting Partner
