About the Play:

Playing Bare (English-language version of La répétition) is a full-length drama by Dominic Champagne, translated by Shelley Tepperman. A burnt-out actress, who despairs of watching her own life from the wings, decides to find herself by directing Waiting for Godot. In her deranged effort to expose the emptiness of playing fictional characters, she casts the lead roles with a pair of non-actors whose lives mirror those of the characters they play. Witty, prickly and fresh, Playing Bare is a mordant satire on the relationship between theatre and life.

Playing Bare traces the inner journey of an accomplished actress who decides to direct Samuel Beckett's masterpiece Waiting for Godot. Feeling drained, a 30-year-old actress named Luce who has played all the great roles for women her age, decides to stage Waiting for Godot, casting herself as Lucky, the play's most minimal, most repressed character and cajoles her theatrical mentor, Pippa, into playing the dictatorial Pozzo. For the roles of Vladimir and Estragon, she casts two street people, Victor and Etienne, whose lives bear an uncanny resemblance to Beckett's characters. Her search for the ultimate theatrical experience – life becoming art – takes the action in hilarious and insightful directions.

La Répétition has had a long and successful life in its original French. In 1990 it won the Quebec Theatre Critics' Award for Best New Play, and was short-listed for the Governor General's Award for French drama. La Répétition was filmed by Radio Canada and for Les Beaux Dimanches. Playing Bare premiered in 1992 at Theatre La Chapelle in Montréal. Since then the play has been successfully staged at several professional theatres across Canada, including Quebec City, Toronto, and Vancouver, in the US, and has been performed in college theatre productions as a showcase of student talent.

Cast: 2 women, 4 men

What people say:

"This is a damn good play about theatre-life and it is occasionally side-splittingly funny." — Montréal Mirror

"…it celebrates theatre by paying tribute to Godot, one of its most brilliant gems."— Vancouver Sun

About the Playwright:

Dominic Champagne is one of the leading Québécois playwrights of his generation. He received his degree in playwriting from the National Theatre School of Canada in 1987 and soon made a name for himself both nationally and internationally. This great talent has placed his stamp as a writer, director, and artistic director on some 100 shows, including theatrical productions, television series, and public events.