A bold, quirky play from the renowned Quebecois writer, translated into a robust and earthy Scots.
On six moonlit Montreal balconies on a sultry summer's evening, eleven people tell their stories of love. Isabelle and Yannick are alive and ecstatic with the thrill of first love. Jeannine and Louise are in torment that their love may be dying. Rose and her son, Mathieu, are suspended in silent complicity, fearful of the other's pain. Gaston and his daughter, Mireille, are caught in a trap of need and blame. Yvon and Gérard are bound to one another through longing and guilt. The Widow sits alone with the memory of a perfect love...
Inspired by the discovery of a lost mass by Berlioz, Solemn Mass for a Full Moon in Summer dispenses with religion but keeps the ritual to lay its characters bare.
Michel Tremblay's play, Messe solennelle pour une pleine lune d'été, was first staged in 1996. This translation, by Martin Bowman and Bill Findlay, was first performed at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, in 2000, transferring to the Barbican, London.
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'Like nothing seen on the Scottish stage before. It is a quirky work that none the less hits home with its classic themes of love, loss and redemption' * Mail on Sunday *
Michel Tremblay is a French Canadian novelist and playwright, born in Montreal, Quebec. His first professionally produced play, Les Belles-Surs, was written in 1965 and premiered at the Théātre du Rideau Vert on August 28, 1968. It stirred up controversy by portraying the lives of working-class women and attacking the straight-laced, deeply religious society of mid-20th century Quebec. A version of the play in Scots English, The Guid Sisters, translated by Bill Findlay and Martin Bowman, was premiered at the Tron Theatre, Glasgow, in 1989; and a version set in Ireland, The Unmanageable Sisters by Deirdre Kinahan, premiered at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, in 2018.
His other notable works include: Ą toi, pour toujours, ta Marie-Lou (1970); La grosse femme d'ą cōté est enceinte (1978); Albertine, en cinq temps (Albertine in Five Times) (1984); Le Vrai Monde? (1987); and Messe solennelle pour une pleine lune d'été (Solemn Mass for a Full Moon in Summer) (1996).
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