Jennifer Heywood-Jackson:
Les deux
solitudes revisités: The Self as the ‘Other’ in Larry Tremblay’s
Chicoutimi
In
his afterword to “The Dragonfly of Chicoutimi” by Larry Tremblay,
Pierre
Lefebvre suggests that this mesmerizing one-person play is a forerunner
because
it “was written in English. Actually it was written in French, but
using
English words” (59). This linguistic
dichotomy lives in the play’s main character, Gaston Talbot, who takes
his
audience on a guided tour of his split hometown, childhood friend,
memory and
unbearable state of mind. If Citizenship involves a sense of belonging
to a
community and a place, then “Gaston Talbot, born in Chicoutimi, was
born out”
(61). In his own home he is excluded from expression, dignity,
ownership, and
eventually from his own self. La seule
manière, pour lui, de se retrouver est de
retourner à sa langue maternelle. This paper looks at
the ways in which this paradox was expressed in the only two
productions the
play has received: the first in Montréal to a French-speaking
audience, and the
second in Toronto, to an English-speaking audience.