North Battleford will be hosting the world premiere of a unique French-language play Feb. 23.
The play called La Maculee/sTain will be performing at 8 p.m. at North Battleford Comprehensive High School. This will be the first of several performances, with the production scheduled for Bellevue Feb. 25 and Zenon Park Feb. 27. A number of performances are scheduled for Saskatoon in March at The Refinery.
The play was written by Madeleine Blais-Dalhem, who originally hails from Delmas and who has been working on writing the play for the past five years. It will be performed by the professional French-language company La Troupe du Jour.
The play itself will be performed in French, but English subtitles will be projected above the actors on the stage. But Blais-Dalhem believes the subject matter will have a universal appeal to Saskatchewan people that transcends the language barrier.
"Every time there is a reading or a workshop, someone says 'that's my life story,'" Blais-Dallem says. The story itself focuses on many of the common issues of life in rural Saskatchewan in the 1920s, such as the isolation and loneliness many homesteaders experienced at the time.
The story is set in the Eagle Hills, said Blais-Dalhem, close to where she grew up. It focuses on a farm wife and mother from Quebec named Francoise who ends up living a new life in rural Saskatchewan.
The story tells how her life is turned upside down when the character's spouse leaves the Catholic Church to become a tent revivalist, joining the English-speaking majority in the process.
"It's traumatic for her because that's her parish, her community, her language, her culture," said Blais-Dalhem.
In her loneliness Francoise clings to her devotion to the blessed Virgin Mary as the only woman she can talk to.
The story is told in flashbacks as it begins with Francoise committed to the psychiatric hospital. That is another focus of the play - finding out whether or not the character really is insane.
The story explores "what you are willing to do to not be lonely," Blais-Dalhem said.
The story itself is based on historical fact. Blais-Dalhem recalls that her mother had recounted the story of a woman in the area in the 1940s who, driven to despair by loneliness, had also committed herself to a mental asylum as a way for her to be able to go to church in the wintertime.
While the events happened in the 1940s, Blais-Dalhem set the story in the 1920s because that was homestead time on the prairies, with many immigrants who did not speak English coming to the area.
"You had a lot of lonely women on these quarter-sections of land," Blais-Dalhem said.
Blais-Dalhem believes the story also should have a contemporary appeal as Canada enjoys its own wave of immigration at the moment, with many newcomers to Canada experiencing many of the same issues, particularly women.
The playwright says she is pleased that the production is getting its premiere here in North Battleford. La Troupe du Jour has been immersed in rehearsals for the production for the past three weeks.
The show promises to be an interesting experience for people looking to brush-up on their high-school French. People will be able to follow the dialogue through English "subtitles" above the stage. During the times during the play when English dialogue is spoken, though, the subtitles will be shown in the French language, promising a fully-bilingual theatregoing experience.
