About the Play:

Song of the Say-Sayer (English version of Le chant du dire-dire) is a full-length drama by Daniel Danis. During a thunderstorm, lightning strikes the home of the Lastings, killing their parents and forever bonding the children. Years later, still haunted by their terrible childhood memory, the three older brothers await the return of their beloved sister Naomi.

Song of the Say-Sayer explores the trauma and tribulations of four extraordinary orphaned siblings. A thunderstorm hits the home of the Lastings, killing the parents and forever bonding the four children, although they are not blood-related. Years later, still haunted by their terrible childhood memory, Rock Lasting and his younger brothers William and Fred-James have been living defiantly on their own since the horrible accident. They await the return of their adored baby sister Naomi who has been singing in faraway places. But she returns is horribly sick. Now the Lasting clan must join forces again to tend to their near-comatose sister, because tensions both internal and external threaten to cleave the family asunder.

Le Chant du dire-dire premiered in 1998 at Montreal's Espace Go and went on to an acclaimed production in Paris. Thunderstruck or The Song of the Say-Sayer had its English premiere in 1999 at Big Secret Theatre in Calgary by One Yellow Rabbit Ensemble. The avant-garde troupe toured the play to Scotland in 2000 at the Traverse Theatre, enjoying a two-week run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Cast: 1 female, 3 male

What people say:

"The purity of that language and the fantastic nature of the story take us deep into a rift that violence causes in identity. It's easy to read the siblings as separate aspects of one nature; the youngest, weakest, most feminine part of the psyche may be shut out in times of trauma, but the betrayed element will return to haunt and insist on integration, healing." — The Georgia Straight

"The structure of the play is unique, straddling narration and dialogue, drawing equally from storytelling theatre and North American psychological drama, and bordering on Native shamanistic incantation." — La Presse

About the Playwright:

Daniel Danis is a writer and a sculptor who wrote his first play, entitled Celle-là (That Woman), in 1993. It earned him the Governor General's Award. For Cendres de cailloux (Stone and Ashes), his second play, he received the "Radio-France International award", as well as several others. His third play, Le chant du Dire-Dire (Song of the Say-Sayer), was created at l'Espace GO in 1998 and at the Théâtre de la Colline, in Paris, in 1999. His play Le langue-à-langue des chiens de roche (In the Eyes of Stone Dogs) has won him the 2002 Governor General's Award. He also wrote Le pont de pierres et la peau d'images for young audiences. Besides being staged in Québec, his plays have been produced in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton, and in Scotland, Ireland, Belgium and France.