Ottawa, 2 October 2014 – Onstage, five young adults engage in verbal jousting, exposing and overexposing themselves. They concoct an existence based on movies they have seen, parties they’ve been to and desired encounters. They define and construct their future publicly, openly and without hesitation, turning their lives into theatre. Cinq visages pour Camille Brunelle by Guillaume Corbeil and directed by Claude Poissant, poses a subtle and disturbing look at the life of an entire generation that puts itself on public display on networking sites. This incisive contemporary play will be presented by the Théâtre français in the NAC Studio from October 15 to 18, 2014 at 8 p.m.

Collecting virtual friends and listing an orgy of cultural references, the five characters reveal themselves through vivid language, laconic discourse and passionate quests, for they must be at all costs, and forever, connected and hip! But just what does this urgent desire to be, to communicate, reveal? Is it deliberate?

Supported by five exceptionally truthful actors and with briskly paced staging, the text, which explores our new models of communication, offers a reflection on how we define ourselves today, how we desire to project our own image and status. The play also touches on underlying issues, particularly the level of awareness of and control over these models. 

 

In killing God, we gouged out the omniscient eye that gave meaning to each of our actions. He saw everything I did; and everything I did, I did for Him. Our cell phone cameras, omniscient by their omnipresence, have replaced the empty eye-socket and it is now the Other, the friend, who plays the role of witness to my existence, publically and privately. 

Guillaume Corbeil

 

For his play Cinq visages pour Camille Brunelle, Guillaume Corbeil received the 2013 Michel Tremblay award from the Fondation du Centre des auteurs dramatiques (CEAD), the best script award from the Association québécoise des critiques de théâtre and the audience award at the Festival of new plays from Canada in Germany. The text was published by Leméac under the title Nous voir nous (2013).

Written by: Guillaume Corbeil // directed by: Claude Poissant // cast: Julie Carrier-Prévost, Laurence Dauphinais, Francis Ducharme, Mickaël Gouin and Ève Pressault // assistant director: Andrée-Anne Garneau // set design: Max-Otto Fauteux // lighting: Martin Labrecque // music: Nicolas Basque // photo and video design: Geodezik (Janicke Morissette, Jean-François Brière and Gabriel Coutu-Dumont) // costumes: DVtoi // costume assistant: Sylvain Genois // makeup: Suzanne Trépanier // movement : Caroline Laurin-Beaucage // technical director: Victor Lamontagne // directing intern: Jean-Simon Traversy // lighting on tour: Marie-Aube St-Amant Duplessis // production manager: Catherine Desjardins-Jolin  // produced by: Théâtre PÀP

The Théâtre français would like to thank the newspaper Le Droit for its collaboration in presenting this performance.

 

What the Critics Say

This stage play is disturbing and incisive, because it suggests that the need for a virtual existence is entirely due to a need to fill a huge void of identity, an ancient fear of being forgotten. (...)Théâtre PÀP has pulled off a brilliant coup with an audacious presentation that is highly effective in both form and content.

Luc Boulanger, La Presse

 

A finely wrought, frenetically paced piece performed by five actors very much up to the task and staged with delicious irony by Claude Poissant, who has avoided all the traps of pathos and who knows how to keep his distance from his subject.

Philippe Couture, Le Devoir

 

Social networks are beginning to make their appearance on our theatre stages, but rarely have they found better analysis and coherence than with this script by Corbeil, one that Poissant has transformed into an excellent moment of theatre. Among the best that Théâtre PÀP has given us in recent years.

Élsa Pépin, Voir