Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Forever Yours, Marie-Lou
    Forever Yours, Marie-Lou
    Forever Yours, Marie-Lou
    Ebook94 pages57 minutes

    Forever Yours, Marie-Lou

    By Michel Tremblay

    3.5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    This second revised edition of Forever Yours, Marie-Lou, which played at the 1990 Stratford Festival, is John Van Burek and Bill Glassco’s new translation of Michel Tremblay’s original French text.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTalonbooks
    Release dateMar 31, 2016
    ISBN9781772010800
    Forever Yours, Marie-Lou
    Author

    Michel Tremblay

    A major figure in Québec literature, Michel Tremblay has built an impressive body of work as a playwright, novelist, translator, and screenwriter. To date Tremblay’s complete works include twenty-nine plays, thirty-one novels, six collections of autobiographical stories, a collection of tales, seven screenplays, forty-six translations and adaptations of works by foreign writers, nine plays and twelve stories printed in diverse publications, an opera libretto, a song cycle, a Symphonic Christmas Tale, and two musicals. His work has won numerous awards and accolades; his plays have been published and translated into forty languages and have garnered critical acclaim in Canada, the United States, and more than fifty countries around the world.

    Read more from Michel Tremblay

    Related to Forever Yours, Marie-Lou

    Related ebooks

    Performing Arts For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    Related categories

    Reviews for Forever Yours, Marie-Lou

    3.5/5

    16 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Forever Yours, Marie-Lou - Michel Tremblay

      Title Page

      A Toi, Pour Toujours, Ta Marie-Lou was first performed at Théâtre de Quat’Sous in Montréal, Québec, on April 29, 1971, with the following cast:

      Marie-Louise:   Hélène Loiselle

      Léopold:   Lionel Villeneuve

      Carmen:   Luce Guilbeault

      Manon:   Rita Lafontaine

      Directed by André Brassard

      Forever Yours, Marie-Lou was first performed in English at Tarragon Theatre in Toronto, Ontario, on November 4, 1972, with the following cast:

      Marie-Louise:   Patricia Hamilton

      Léopold:   George Sperdakos

      Carmen:   June Keevil

      Manon:   Toby Tarnow

      Directed by Bill Glassco

      Forever Yours, Marie-Lou was first performed in this new English translation at the Stratford Festival in Stratford, Ontario, on June 8, 1990, with the following cast:

      Marie-Louise:   Susan Wright

      Léopold:   Shaun Austin-Olsen

      Carmen:   Julia Winder

      Manon:   Marti Maraden

      Directed by Lorne Kennedy

      Designed by Brian Perchaluk

      Music by Keith Thomas

      Lighting designed by Kevin Fraser

      The set is divided into three parts: the centre-­backstage is a very clean, but very dark kitchen decorated exclusively with pious images, statues, candles, etc.; on the left is a living room with a sofa, a television, and a small table; on the right, a tavern table with three chairs. The kitchen should be as realistic as possible, but the other parts of the set may be incomplete or even merely suggested.

      In the back, above the three parts of the set hangs a huge photograph, representing four young girls in the ’40s, beaming at the camera. At the bottom of the photograph, one can read: Forever Yours, Marie-Lou. Above the head of one of the girls a child has made a cross and written: Maman, age 18.

      The double action of the play takes place in the kitchen, but I ­wanted to plant MARIE-LOUISE and LÉOPOLD in their favourite spots: MARIE-LOUISE is sitting in front of her ­television, ­knitting, and LÉOPOLD is sitting in the tavern in front of a half dozen beers. As for MANON and CARMEN, they are ­actually sitting in the kitchen.

      The two conversations (MARIE-LOUISE-LÉOPOLD, CARMEN-MANON) take place ten years apart but they intermingle ­throughout the play. Thus it is very important that the spectator feel that MARIE-LOUISE and LÉOPOLD are in the early 1960s while CARMEN and MANON are in the 1970s. It is also ­important (perhaps through a change in lighting) that the audience ­realize when CARMEN and MANON become characters in the past, in other words, girls fifteen or sixteen years of age.

      MARIE-LOUISE and LÉOPOLD never move, never look at one another. They stare straight ahead. They will only look at one another during the last two lines of the play.

      §

      MARIE-LOUISE

      Tomorrow …

      CARMEN

      Wow …

      LÉOPOLD

      Yeah …

      MANON

      Still …

      MARIE-LOUISE

      Tomorrow …

      CARMEN

      Wow …

      LÉOPOLD

      Yeah …

      MANON

      Still …

      Silence.

      MARIE-LOUISE

      Tomorrow we gotta …

      CARMEN

      Wow, it’s already …

      LÉOPOLD

      Yeah, I know …

      MANON

      Still, it feels …

      Silence.

      MARIE-LOUISE

      Tomorrow we gotta eat at my mother’s …

      CARMEN

      Wow, it’s already ten years …

      LÉOPOLD

      Yeah, I know … It’s a pain in the ass.

      MANON

      Still, it feels like yesterday …

      MARIE-LOUISE

      You think I feel like it?

      CARMEN

      Ten years …

      LÉOPOLD

      If you don’t want to go either, we’ll stay here, for Christ sake.

      MANON

      Ten years …

      MARIE-LOUISE

      You want more coffee, Léopold?

      Silence.

      You want more coffee, Léopold?

      Silence.

      Do you want more coffee, Léopold?

      CARMEN

      Ten Years!

      LÉOPOLD

      No, but you can make me more toast.

      MANON

      Ten years …

      LÉOPOLD

      Two pieces.

      MARIE-LOUISE

      You ought to be careful … You eat too much bread … The doctor …

      CARMEN

      A lot of water under the bridge …

      LÉOPOLD

      Screw the doctor, make me more toast …

      MANON

      No …

      LÉOPOLD

      And don’t burn them.

      MANON

      Everything’s stayed the same …

      LÉOPOLD

      I want them light.

      CARMEN

      Maybe for you …

      LÉOPOLD

      Nice and light …

      CARMEN

      For me, everything’s changed …

      LÉOPOLD

      Forget it … I’ll do it myself.

      MARIE-LOUISE

      I can make your toast. I’m not sick.

      CARMEN

      Everything’s changed.

      MARIE-LOUISE

      I’m not sick!

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1