As part of a course taught by the department of French studies, language and literature which is entitled the Theater Workshoptwo pieces ofEugène Labiche, dFrench ramurist (1815-1888), are to be discovered in the coming days in the Martial-Caron room of the University of Saint-Boniface (USB).
“It’s a six-credit course, that is to say one of the rare courses that takes place over the entire year, therefore two semesters,” specifies Jean Valenti, full professor of French literature of the 19th and 20th centuries at USB and director of implementation. scene of these two plays.
At the distribution level we find around ten students who worked on the creation of these pieces.
“The objective of the course is to put on a play, generally with students who are amateur actors, there are no professionals.
“When I talk about putting on a play, it touches on all the elements of a theater production, from the play of lights, the decor, the scenography, the direction, and of course the students must also learn their text »indicates Jean Valenti, professor at USB for 25 years.
Jean Valenti also explains the choice of pieces d’Eugene Labiche illustrating himself in the genre ofvaudeville. In the theater, it is a short and entertaining comedy, mixing rapid intrigues, misunderstandings and songs.
« Eugène Labiche is a 19th century French vaudevillian, he is one of the most prolific authors, we owe him about 180 vaudevilles in collaboration. Lvaudeville is also a part sung piece, so we discovered a few voices during the semester, some very beautiful voices, others to forget as quickly as possible (laughs).
“Vaudeville is also interesting because generally these are plays that last 35 and 40 minutes, they are short plays, and generally the cast is made with four or five characters, so that is absolutely perfect for the theater workshop.
“Because I cannot impose a text of 200 pages on my students, they are not professional actors, it is impossible, so here we are talking about texts of around 30 to 40 pages, which can be memorized quite quickly. »
The public will therefore be able to discover the following pieces: The Two Shy Ones (1860), which explores human relationships from the angle of shyness, and Mon Isménie (1852), which makes fun of the failings of the 19th century bourgeoisie.
