The Driving Force

Description

In Act 1, Claude, 55, visits his father Alex, 77, in an Alzheimer's ward, intimately tending to his bodily functions and needs while hopelessly trying to reach his silent, vacant father with a series of monologues to settle old scores and misunderstandings between them. In an astonishing and eerie reversal of roles, in Act 2 it is Alex who visits his son Claude in the same Alzheimer's ward and it is Alex's turn to rant and rail at what he perceives to be his mute son's contempt for his own working class life. With a cruel and disconsolate irony, we come to see that his father's lifelong attempt to mock and censure Claude's work as consisting of nothing but mediocre, misrepresentative lies, has been the very driving force behind Claude's compulsion to continue to reveal the "truth" of human relationships as he so desperately wants his father to understand it.

Michel Tremblay One of the most produced and the most prominent playwrights in the history of Canadian theatre, Michel Tremblay has received countless prestigious honours and accolades. His dramatic, literary and autobiographical works have long enjoyed remarkable international popularity, including translations of his plays that have achieved huge success in Europe, the Americas and the Middle East. Awards and Recognition* Prix du Grand (2009) La Traversee de la ville (Lemeac Editeur Inc.) Blue Metropolis International Literary Grand Prix (2006) Globe and Mail Top 100 Books (2003) Birth of a Bookworm Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play (2000) For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again Chalmers Awards (1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1978, 1986, 1989, 2000) Governor General's Performing Arts Award (1999) Molson Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts (1994) Louis-Hemon Prize (1994) Montreal Book Fair Grand Public Prize (1994) Banff Centre National Award (1992) Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters of France (1991) Chevalier of the Order of Quebec (1990) San Francisco Lesbian and Gay Festival Long-Standing Public Service Award (1989) CBC Anik Prize (1988) Athanase-David Lifetime Achievement Prize (1988) Quebec-Paris Prize (1985) Chevalier of Arts and Letters of France (1984) Linda Gaboriau Linda Gaboriau is an award-winning literary translator based in Montreal. Her translations of plays by Quebec's most prominent playwrights have been published and -produced across Canada and abroad. In her work as a -literary manager and dramaturge, she has directed -numerous translation residencies and international exchange projects. She was the founding director of the Banff International Literary Translation Centre. Most recently she won the 2010 Governor General's Award for Forests, her translation of the play by Wajdi Mouawad.

"The text is as severe, intense and implacable as the reality of each character." -- CBC Radio Canada