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Fragments of a Farewell Letter Read by Geologists
Fragments of a Farewell Letter Read by Geologists
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Author: Normand Chaurette Translated by: Linda Gaboriau Publisher: Talonbooks (cover image may change) Format: Softcover # of Pages: 95 Pub. Date: 1998 ISBN-10: 08892240005 ISBN-13: 9780889224001 Cast Size: 1 female, 6 male
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About the Play:
Fragments of a Farewell Letter Read by Geologists (English
version of Fragments d'une lettre d'adieu lus par des géologues)
is a drama by Normand Chaurette, translated by Linda
Gaboriau. An engineering project testing new technology for
water purification in Cambodia goes dreadfully wrong and the chief
engineer dies. His team of four geologists faces a commissioned
inquiry into the mysterious tragedy. The only evidence, apart from
the remains of his torso, is a letter, possibly a suicide note, in
which the same introductory lines are repeated over and over again.
Was he murdered? Did he kill himself?
Fragments of a Farewell Letter Read by Geologists is a
dramatized quasi-judicial inquiry in which four geologists are
interrogated about the death of Toni van Saikin, project leader of a
failed humanitarian expedition to the Mekong Delta, Cambodia. It's a
heart of darkness experience for the five scientists as they battle
torrential tropical rain, floods, venomous snakes and insects,
dysentery, bacteria, isolation and complete failure of their goal –
the production of safe drinking water. The mysterious death of van
Saikin brings the project abruptly to an end, but three small
fragments of a letter written by van Saikin before his death and
containing phrases like "when you read this letter"
initiate an inquiry. Four geologists, another engineer and the dead
man's wife testify before the inquiry's skeptical, probing chairman.
The geologists all give prepared statements with minutely detailed
accounts before the inquiry, but none is able to provide a definitive
explanation of the circumstances surrounding the man's mysterious
demise. Rational thought and scientific jargon cloud the way to real
understanding. Was he murdered? Did he commit suicide? Or was he, as
several of them suggest, "a man who had decided to die?"
Fragments d'une lettre d'adieu lus par des géologues
premiered in 1986 at Théâtre de Quat'Sous in Montréal and was
nominated for a Governor General's Award in 1987 and won the Prix de
l'Association québécoise des critiques de théâtre for Best Play
Produced in 1988. The English-language translation of Fragments
of a Farewell Letter Read by Geologists premiered in 1992 at
Equity Showcase Theatre in Toronto. Since then it has had numerous
staged readings and a notable production in 2005 by Screaming Flea
Theatre in an SFU classroom at Harbour Centre in Vancouver.
Cast: 1 female, 6 male
What people say:
"A massive and finally
thrilling piece of post-modern writing about the relationship between
man and nature, the decay of social idealism, the fact of death, and
– above all – the moral and intellectual failure of late 20th
century academic science ... a text that confronts, with rare
courage, some of the most frightening questions facing our
civilisation." — Spectrum
"All of our deaths are both
inevitable and incomprehensible. All of us know what it's like to be
a soul trapped in a mortal body observing the overwhelming realm of
the senses. Reason can never answer the deepest questions of the
spirit. Art doesn't always answer them either, but it can pose them
in a compelling way – as it does here." — The
Georgia Straight
About the Playwright:
Normand Chaurette (1954-2022) was a Québec playwright, translator
and non-fiction author based in his native Montréal. A three-time
winner of the Governor
General's Award for French-language drama (Canadian equivalent of the
Pulitzer Prize), he
excelled on all levels of writing: his plays and translations of plays
have been staged and acclaimed internationally, particularly in the
U.S. and Europe. His own plays have also been translated into several
languages.
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Normand Chaurette, Translated by Linda Gaboriau
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Normand Chaurette, Translated by Linda Gaboriau
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Normand Chaurette, Translated by Linda Gaboriau
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