About the Play:

Finalist for the 2006 Governor General's Literary Award for Translation (Canadian equivalent of Pulitzer Prize)

Assorted Candies for the Theatre is a stage adaptation by Michel Tremblay of his fourth (and he says last) book of autobiographical narratives, Bonbons Assortis / Assorted Candies. Like the previous three volumes, which celebrate the books, plays and films that shaped his imagination and writing life, this collection of eight delightful stories takes us back to his formative years in Montréal's Plateau Mont-Royal neighbourhood. Six-year-old Michel from under the family kitchen table sees everything from the knees down but hears everything from the heart up; all the stories, arguments, gossip, philosophy, jokes and wisdom that spill from the lives of the five women and one man who are the seminal influences in his young life.

Assorted Candies for the Theatre is much more than a mere adaptation of a prose memoir for the stage. In re-crafting his characters from the realm of thought and memory to the present action of the theatre, Michel Tremblay generously reveals poignant and joyful childhood memories as varied as the assorted candies his Mother hoarded under her bed, to be shared only on the most festive or dramatic of family occasions. We get to see the world through the eyes of young Michel, who is often discovered observing the other nine members of the bustling household on Fabre Street from his hiding place under the dining-room table. His Mother, Nana (immortalized in the play For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again), dominates these memories; but the tender, cherished moments shared with his father, along with his prickly paternal grandmother and irascible aunt (who inspired his unforgettable character Albertine), also profoundly shape this child's view of the world. Neighbours, from whom the family haplessly tries to hide their poverty with dignity, brothers and an uncle (who, telephoning from the local tavern, claims to be Santa calling from the North Pole), complete the rich and colourful cast of characters in this exquisite remembrance of childhood past.

Cast: 4 female, 3 male

What people say:

"It's vintage Tremblay (out-Prousting Proust), filled with primal privations and inspirations of awe, a family's love and terrors, the stuff that makes a writer a writer: Family. Church. Lust. Poverty. The whole enthralling works." — Globe and Mail

"The best of Tremblay can be found in these Assorted Candies: the unparalleled dialogist, the prodigious portraitist, the attentive memorialist, and above all, the writer who manages to retain the childhood sense of wonder." — Voir

"Michel Tremblay wrote this book with evident pleasure, a contagious one." — La Presse

"The idealized memories of childhood told via colourful dialogues mark the charm of … Bonbons Assortis." — Canadian Literature

"Linda Gaboriau elegantly transports the English reader into the bustling world of Michel Tremblay’s childhood. She maintains the narrative simplicity and natural dialogue of his stories, as seen and heard from a child's point of view." — 2006 Governor General's Literary Awards Jury

"As indelibly as Mordecai Richler staked a claim to the Jewish Montreal of Mile End, Tremblay’s novels, plays, and autobiographical writings have made working-class French Montreal an archetypal literary setting … Tremblay's knack for recalling and accessing his boyhood self is uncanny. Assorted Candies is short but sweet.." — Montreal Review of Books

About the Playwright:

Michel Tremblay has been one of Québec's most prominent playwrights since the end of the 1960s. One of the most produced and the most prominent playwrights in the history of Canadian theatre, he has received countless prestigious honours and accolades. His dramatic, literary and autobiographical works, originally written in French, have long enjoyed remarkable international popularity and translations of his plays have received huge success worldwide.

Linda Gaboriau was born in Boston and moved to Montréal in 1963 to pursue education in French language and literature at McGill University. She has been active in Canadian and Québecois theatre for over twenty years as a critic, journalist, broadcaster, consultant, and literary translator who has translated some 100 plays and novels by Quebec writers, including many of the Québec plays best known to English-speaking Canadian audiences. As a literary manager and dramaturge, Linda Gaboriau has held numerous translation residencies and directed many international exchange projects; she currently serves as the director of the Banff International Literary Translation Centre.