Awkward stage onstage

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 15/01/2025 (260 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Eighteen months ago, “six kids and one old man” got together with a single goal in mind: to write and perform a full-scale production from scratch for the province’s oldest professional theatre company, Théâtre Cercle Molière.

“We started with nothing. What came next was up to them,” says educator Philippe Habeck, the self-described old man in question who oversaw the development of Here and There!

The possibilities were endlessly exciting — and a tad intimidating — for both Habeck and the six high school and university students who were brought together after participating in Cercle Molière’s annual Festival Théâtre Jeunesse two years ago.

With one original script, what could they tell the world about how it felt to be young in 2025?

Every two weeks, the troupe — Mikaël Beaudry, Andreas Detillieux, Madison Nelson, Lizzie Rochon, Jordan Showers and Amélie Tétrault — met with Habeck to consider the question, improvising scenes and discussing sources of inspiration from their lives.

The result had plenty to do with the pressures of endless possibilities and the idea that every decision they made — no matter how trivial they seemed — would forever alter the course of their lives.

In Here and There! (Un Peu Partout!), the teenage Isabelle (Rochon) leaves a party and waits outside for a taxi, where her evening’s contemplations veer into existential territory.

Should she stay put, get married to her religious farmboy boyfriend (Detillieux) and become a doctor like her older sister, Monique (Nelson, a Grade 12 student)? Or should she listen to the quiet voice encouraging her to abandon her small-town mindset and see what exists beyond her youthful borders? Ticktock, the meter is running.

“The play explores aspects of identity and what it means to stand on your own versus pleasing the folks around you, considering how to live for yourself versus for those in your life. And it entails all of the scary ‘What-ifs’ that come from that,” says stage manager Sarah Lamoureux.

Kate George’s set design helps tell that story through street signs: there are no U-turns, no exits, some confusing forks in the road, one emphatic warning to take a step back (Recule!!) and a traffic-light column simultaneously blinking red, yellow and green, delivering a mixed message that could lead to collision and heartbreak.

“Chaque chemin est un mauvais chemin,” one sign reads: each available path is a treacherous one.

“Geneviève (Pelletier, Cercle Molière’s artistic director) really wanted a show by the kids, for the kids. Their shows are always wonderful to see, but they’re generally made for an adult crowd, so her idea was to bring a new generation to see some theatre and to share the ideas of kids who need to be heard and also want to be heard,” says Habeck.

The show, say Lamoureux and Habeck, is non-linear and dream-like, with its characters entertaining even their least rational patterns of thinking as they move toward self-compassion and an ultimate understanding that life’s biggest questions have more than one answer.

After about 15 months of development, the troupe has spent the last six weeks in rehearsals, during which they’ve been paid hourly rates for their work, says Habeck.

No cast members were available for interviews when the Free Press stopped by — first-week-of-school vibes — so Habeck and Lamoureux did their best conveying the ideas of the show.

But when the curtain rises today for the production’s eight-show run, Habeck assures that the only voices the audience will hear are those of Rochon, Detillieux, Tétrault, Nelson, Beaudry and Showers.

“It’s sometimes harsh and sometimes sweet and sometimes frustrated, but this is their message,” says Habeck. “It’s them talking. It’s not an adult who wrote every line for them. There was guidance, but this show is them — in their own words.”

ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.com