Written and directed by Wajdi Mouawad

With Marie?Josée Bastien, Jean?Jacqui Boutet, Véronique Côté, Gérald Gagnon, Linda Laplante, Anne?Marie Olivier, Valeriy Pankov and Isabelle Roy

Artistic contributors: Alain Roy, François Ismert, Charlotte Farcet, Emmanuel Clolus, Isabelle Larivière, Eric Champoux, Michael Jon Fink, Jean?Sébastien Côté, Angelo Barsetti

Produced by Théâtre du Trident (Quebec City) and Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui (Montreal) / Coproducers: Abé Carré Cé Carré (Quebec), Au Carré de l’Hypoténuse (France), National Arts Centre French Theatre, Théâtre National de Chaillot, Grand T–scène conventionnée Loire?Atlantique, Comédie de Clermont-Ferrand–scène nationale, and the Berlin Schaubühne / With the participation of Le Grand Théâtre de Québec

After Littoral (Tideline), Incendies (Scorched), Forêts, Ciels, and Seuls comes Temps, Wajdi Mouawad’s latest creation, which will be presented in the Theatre of the National Arts Centre (NAC) from April 12 to 16, 2011 at 7:30 p.m.

The idea for this new play, which had its world premiere on March 3 at the opening of the F.I.N.D. Festival at the Schaubühne in Berlin, was sparked by Gill Champagne, artistic director of the Théâtre du Trident in Quebec City, who asked Wajdi Mouawad to write a play for the theatre’s 40^th anniversary. In accepting the invitation, Wajdi Mouawad also set himself the challenge of showing up for the first day of rehearsals with nothing prepared in advance!

“Wajdi chose to arrive empty-handed, at least as far as possible. For months he had struggled to ‘keep a lid on it,’ to prevent himself from thinking too much about the project, because he wanted to keep things open and start with a blank page—and because he harboured a secret desire to recuse himself. To build nothing, to plan nothing... simply to ‘drift.’ This was the first word we heard, and it became the craft on which we embarked on our creative journey. This might seem like an odd approach, given the relatively short time we had, much shorter than for previous projects: barely seven weeks—five in Quebec, two in Berlin. Forêts was developed in nine months, Seuls in seven, Ciels in six. But now time was of the essence. And yet Wajdi adopted a very unstructured attitude to rehearsals, preferring to take his chances with the march of time, to accept the risk, in order to make his escape, to keep things loose; to drift, and perhaps to land in an unexpected place.... because sometimes it’s pointless to call something India when it turns out to be America.”
– Charlotte Farcet, dramaturg
Excerpt from rehearsal diary

SYNOPSIS
Two brothers and a sister reunite after 40 years to deal with their dying father’s estate. It’s winter in the mining town of Fermont, on the Labrador border, where the mercury sometimes drops to ?60°. A protective wall shields the town from the ferocious wind; the residents of Fermont, most of whom work for the company that runs the nearby iron mine, live within the sheltering wall. Between the inside of the house where the siblings have gathered and the outside, where the streets are being invaded by a horde of rats impervious to the violent winds sweeping through the town, something is about to emerge, like an ancient and deadly wound—something the children will have to face if they are to regain any sense of lightness. But as they will soon find out, these days lightness comes at a high price.

FERMONT
We were transported to Lebanon in Littoral (Tideline), to the Middle East in Incendies (Scorched), to concentration camps in Forêts, to the heart of a huge international organization in Ciels, to Russia in Seuls, and earlier to a dark and dingy cave in Les Mains d’Edwige au moment de la naissance. Now, in Wajdi Mouawad’s latest creation, Temps, we find ourselves in Fermont, a community in northern Quebec.

A town of some 30,000 souls, located north of the 52^nd parallel, 565 kilometres north of Baie Comeau and 15 kilometres from the Quebec-Labrador border, Fermont is notable for its kilometre-long wall (Place Daviault), a huge self-contained structure that protects the inhabitants from the bitter cold of winters that can last seven months.

Fermont was founded in the early 1970s as a company town to exploit the rich iron ore deposits that give it its name (a contraction of fer mont, meaning “iron mountain”). The local economy is dependent on the iron mines owned by Arcelor Mittal Mines Canada (formerly the Québec Cartier Mining Company) at the Mount Wright site, 17 kilometres west of the town.

What will happen in this glacial location, so different from Wajdi Mouawad’s usual Middle Eastern setting where civil wars and identity, twinship and solitude intersect, and where larger-than-life characters expose the trauma of breaking their long-held silence? What will we discover from the inhabitants of this city of iron and ice, linked as they are by blood or by secrets passed down through the generations? Are you sitting comfortably? Then we’ll begin. But remember that you’re stuck in a remote and claustrophobic community, and that your only escape lies more than 500 kilometres away down Highway 389...

Following its run at the NAC, Temps will be presented at the Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui in Montreal from April 19 to May 14, with additional performances May 8, 15, 17 and 18.

RUNNING TIME:
2 hours and 10 minutes, with no intermission

RESERVATIONS:
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