When Wajdi Mouawad and Jane Birkin, mutually impressed by their respective artistic vision and passionate social consciousness, first met, each recognized in the other a kindred spirit motivated by the same immediate and authentic humanity. The playwright was inspired to write a play especially for Birkin – Birkin as actor and as politically engaged individual with great compassion for the world and its inhabitants.

French Theatre is pleased to announce La Sentinelle, a special off-subscription presentation for the 2011–12 season. La Sentinelle is a rare opportunity to see – and, better yet, to hear – these two artists together on stage. Fresh from the hugely successful North American tour of her show Serge Gainsbourg and Jane via Japan, actress and singer Jane Birkin arrives in Ottawa on Friday, February 10, 2012 at 7:30 p.m. to breathe life into the words penned by her friend Wajdi Mouawad.

Produced by Au carré de l’hypoténuse and Abé carré cé carré, La Sentinelle was first presented as a staged reading at the Avignon Festival in July 2009. The NAC is pleased to present the Canadian premiere of an expanded version featuring additional content.

“We are left with only frail voices to speak the truth, or sing it if we cannot speak it. A living voice trying to comfort the dead. In our own time, Jane Birkin’s silken voice is one of those. If we cannot bring back to life those who have disappeared, innocent victims of injustice, we can at least give them some dignity: a cantata, a song, an oratorio, a simple phrase, words to tell of wounds, wounded words, wounds of words, intertwined, interwoven, folded and refolded, unfolded, implicated, in a necessarily complex act that can be heard and understood only by those who share an awareness of the inaudible rustlings of men and women dying needlessly in the intolerable solitude of mass graves.”

Wajdi Mouawad

JANE BIRKIN
www.janebirkin.net

WAJDI MOUAWAD
www.wajdimouawad

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Sylvain Lavoie
Communications Officer
French Theatre
National Arts Centre
tel.: 613-947-7000 ext 396
tool free: 1-866-850-2787 ext 396
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sylvain.lavoie@nac-cna.ca
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