About the Play:

That Woman (English version of Celle-là) is full-length drama play by Daniel Danis, translated by Linda Gaboriau. In the wake of church interference in a young woman's life, beauty and innocence, desire and forgiveness struggle for survival. The Woman. The Son. The Old Man Upstairs. Could there be any holiness in this earthly trinity or is it just another dysfunctional family? A tale as fierce as it is moving.

That Woman is the story of a woman (her name is never given), sent away from her family by her brother the Bishop after she is found exploring her sexuality at age seventeen. In a series of twenty-four "snapshots," That Woman is a devastating Judeo-Christian allegory where voyeurism, fantasy, masturbation, seduction, violence and loss are revealed in fugue-like monologues by the three characters present on stage — a woman who was thirsty, her son who liked to laugh, and an old man who watched them. That Woman is a play which makes the literal "patriarchal gaze" emanating from three fisheye holes into the most private rooms of the woman's apartment the searing light which withers every impulse to joy and creation, and in which the Mary-Eve schizophrenia of the feminine archetype "wastes" the seed of the equally schizophrenic, celibate / dreamer-rapist / destroyer, male archetype of the patriarchal Catholic tradition.

Cast: 1 female, 2 male

What people say:

"A style that deftly blends the levels, weaves the voices, short-circuits the emotions, with the apparent confusion of a mental journey, creating a remarkably efficient and orderly whole." — Le Devoir (Montréal)

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.