Idyllic inspiration

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This article was published 31/05/2023 (1172 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Not satisfied with taking a walk in Gabrielle Roy’s shoes, Marie-Ève Fontaine decided to sleep in the famed author’s bed.

The St. Boniface theatre artist was searching for inspiration five years ago when she was commissioned by Théâtre Cercle Molière to adapt Cet été qui chantait, an epistolary collection of naturalistic memories written by Roy in the evening hours of her literary heyday.

Compiled in 1972, released in English as The Summer That Sang, Cet été was inspired by the writer’s summertime writing enclave, a cabin in the Quebec town of Petite-Rivière-Saint-François.

From that cabin, Roy observed simple natural phenomena, capturing the drama and comedy of living creatures through a lens of youthful innocence and wonder, an experience Fontaine recreates in her hour-long puppet play, recommended for Grade 3 and up.

A firm believer in the power of immersion, Fontaine had to see the world through Roy’s window for herself, taking up an artistic residency.

“Being in that house was like living the book experience out in 3D,” says Fontaine, 31. “I already had the stories in my head, but now, I could play them out in Roy’s actual environment.”

It wasn’t the first time Fontaine found herself sitting at Roy’s breakfast table, or imagining the state of her writing desk: as a teenage student at Collège Louis Riel, Fontaine read Bonheur d’Occasion, the 1945 novel that launched Roy’s career and earned her the first of three Governor General’s Awards. “I was kind of a Gabrielle Roy nerd from the get-go.“

She’s not kidding: her first paid job was as a tour guide at Roy’s maison on Rue Deschambault, a street that lent its name to one of Roy’s most acclaimed works of literary fiction. On her breaks, in an era before social media, Fontaine would cosy up with her favourite writer’s books. Then she would walk home down the same streets where Roy, who lived from 1909 to 1983, once found sparks of quotidian inspiration.

After leaving Manitoba to study French-language theatre at the University of Ottawa — a move similar to Roy’s voyage to Europe to study drama — Roy’s influence clung to Fontaine like bonfire smoke to a flannel shirt. She pitched an early concept for the adaptation of Cet été to TCM artistic director Geneviève Pelletier, who enthusiastically approved. Then came the first of two trips to Petite-Rivière-Saint-François.

“I don’t know if I’ve followed her around, or if she’s following me,” says Fontaine, who also co-stars as Roy’s sister Clemence in the ICI TV series Le monde de Gabrielle Roy.

After her first trip to Roy’s cottage, which provided inspiration if not a complete production, Fontaine returned in 2019, bringing along a pair of experienced collaborators: the director, writer and puppeteer Pierre Robitaille, and sound designer and musician Gérald Laroche. Unlike Roy, who liked to work in solitude, Fontaine found comfort in company.

For four days, Laroche and Robitaille, both avowed Roy fans, basked in their surroundings, taking hikes, listening to the wind and in Laroche’s case, imagining how he’d mimic the birdsong of the Charlevoix region Roy described in Cet été.

On the surface, Fontaine was calm, but inside, the writer’s clock ticked. “We didn’t have a lot on paper,” she recalls.

Laroche and Robitaille weren’t quite as concerned, which proved revelatory. “I realized there wouldn’t be a script that time,” Fontaine recalls. “But in the long term, that recognition was a very important part of the process. You have to be present, paying attention to the moment and what’s happening around you. You have to enjoy it. That was the lesson. That was the epiphany that shaped the whole process, because what that visit was about was being together and enjoying the time of creation.”

Working alone, Fontaine sometimes finds herself “s’enflanger dans les fleurs du tapis” — tripping over the flowers in the carpet — too focused on the specific to appreciate the holistic; her creative partners helped her recognize the flowers in bloom along the riverbank.

What happened next, of course, was exactly what Fontaine’s mentors predicted: using the trip to Quebec as a foundation, the trio, along with set designer Denis Duguay, took Roy’s idyllic cabin and shrunk it down to fit at Théâtre Cercle Molière.

Using old technology — overhead projectors, transparencies, Robitaille’s handmade puppets, and Laroche’s extensive collection of harmonicas and chimes — Fontaine developed a completely different show than she initially envisioned, one meant as much for adults as it is for children.

At a rehearsal early in May, Fontaine, who plays Roy, showcased the fruits of their collective labour, centred on a window with an ever-changing landscape, filled with rolling projections of mountains, fireflies and a majestic raven. Nearby, a papier-mâché puppet of Roy’s sister Bernadette — to whom the book is dedicated — rested in a miniature rocking chair, crafted by Duguay.

As Laroche blew into a microphone, echoing the rushing waters of the St. Lawrence River, Fontaine carefully walked through a reproduction of Roy’s dining room table, tiptoeing past felled trees that offered a sweet, piney aroma.

Not everyone can travel to Roy’s former home in Quebec and sleep in her bed.

St. Boniface is a lot closer.

ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.com