Search

Saved articles

You have not yet added any article to your bookmarks!

Browse articles

GDPR Compliance

We use cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. By continuing to use our site, you accept our use of cookies, Privacy Policy, and Terms of Service.

Marcel Pursued By the Hounds by Michel Tremblay

 
Peter Scott-Presland Review by Peter Scott-Presland 3 Published: 22 Aug 2012 Show Dates: 31 Dec 1969-31 Dec 1969

Michel Tremblay is a French Canadian playwright who was an Angry Young Man in the 60s and shook the stuffy Anglophone artistic establishment by introducing Quebequois working class characters and themes along with their local patois, jouai. Since he writes in French, the quality of translation is important. His best known play, Les Belles-Soeurs, interestingly, was done in Scots a few years ago as The Guid-Sisters - I can see how that would work as a parallel universe.

Marcel Pursued By Dogs is a distant reworking of classical legend. The three Fates - in this production elegant young women in Empire dresses clutching rag dolls - are waiting for Marcel, a teenager who is having a nervous breakdown and desperately needs their help. The dogs (a French Canadian nickname for the police) are after him; he has witnessed the murder of Mercedes, on whom he has a crush, but who is the mistress of his sister’s husband, Maurice. There is no resolution, as the play ends with Marcel resting in the arms of the Fates, while his sister sports the black eye that they predicted her husband would give him.

It is extremely difficult to find a style for Tremblay, who is a kind of low-rent Tennessee Williams. He needs poetry, intensity, and self-assurance. Each character is in a self-contained world. This production suffers from a rather clunky translation, and over-literal direction which treats it as a naturalistic ‘well-made play’. It is, however, beautifully designed, and anyone interested in unusual North American repertoire should seek it out.

Related to this article:

Performances

The Blurb:

Marcel and his ferociously unforgiving sister Thérèse are hounded by memory, reputation and an unsatisfactory present. They eke out an existence amidst a seedy world of crime, watched by four nurturing fates.