False Starts
Description
False Starts presents a series of determining moments between two people stuck reliving the same moment over and over, but in unexpected ways and in different genres (from diary to dramatic dialogue, film script to sound installation). Their interdependence and fundamental inability to say how they feel for one another over twenty years - in spite of their eloquence, in spite of their creativity - constitutes the background of the ongoing spectacle of their relationship.
Made up of a series of short pieces originally published in French as Dialogues fantasques pour causeurs éperdus, this translation by the author and Alexandre St-Laurent with Katia Grubisic, also offers previously unpublished texts. Originally staged for the stage, screen, and elevator at Montreal's matralab.
More details
Persons
Louis Patrick Leroux is an associate professor in both the English and French departments at Concordia University. A playwright and theatre director, he is also a scholar whose academic research focuses on cultural discourse, research-creation, Québec theatre, and contemporary circus.
He was playwright in residence at Sudbury's Théâtre du Nouvel-Ontario (1993-94, 2005-06, and 2006-07), the Leighton Artists' Studios at the Banff Centre for the Arts in 1994, and the CEAD International playwrights residency in 1999. He founded and managed Ottawa's Théâtre la Catapulte in the 1990s and has since focused on impossible, improbable, and necessary drama.
Content
Juvenilia-The Ur-Play (Dialogue: Flirtatious draft) ...
... here he comes with his ridiculous cape ...
Prolegomena (What they will not say) ...
Pianissimo ...
Dialogue, Take 2: The Chance Encounter of Marie-Antoinette and Napoleon on a Dissection Table. A film ...
A Moment of Authenticity ...
Sediments ...
Milford Haven, triptych ...
Dialogue, takes 3 and 4: Marie-Antoinette and Napoleon at the Hudson's By; filming the silent film ...
Metered Confessional. Second test of authenticit y...
Well, I like Sheep! ...
The Top Hat and the Sewing Machine ...
The Race. A description ...
Scene of Truth. A third attempt at authenticity ...
Failures. A "didascalogue" ...
False Starts. Discarded papers, found, pinned to a wall ...
The original French texts (a short history of their staging) ...
Notes on the English translation and acknowledgments ...