About the Play:

Winner of the 1990 Governor General's Award for drama (Canadian equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize).

The Magnificent Voyage of Emily Carr (English version of Le voyage magnifique d'Emily Carr) is a full-length drama by Jovette Marchessault, translated by Linda Gaboriau. Follow the internal life of one of Canada's most beloved artists and the interplay of her perceptions and projections with her outer world. In her home, christened The House of All Sorts, famed painter Emily Carr with all her greatness and imperfections receives several visitors. The Magnificent Voyage of Emily Carr is a dramatization of the internal life of the artist, projecting how she sees her world.

The Magnificent Voyage of Emily Carr takes a look at the life of a great Canadian icon: famed painter Emily Carr. The West Coast painter lived in a magical home that she had christened "The House of All Sorts". In this play, Emily Carr receives visits from her sister, Lizzie, the epitome of Victorian society; from her First Nations friend, Sophie; Lawren Harris, the young painter who wants to revolutionize art in Canada; the Soul Tuner, who hears her cries of compassion; and from D'Sonoqua, the Goddess-Mother who beckons from the old world of legends.

Le voyage magnifique d'Emily Carr premiered in 1990 at Théâtre d'Aujourd'hui in Montreal and won the Governor-General's Award for French drama in 1991. The Magnificent Voyage of Emily Carr received its English-language premiere in 1992 at the Belfry Theatre in Victoria.

Cast: 3 women, 1 man

What people say:

"A worthy trip home for one of Canada's greatest painters." — Globe & Mail

"Marchessault's images are as powerful and surreal as Carr's." — Theatrum Magazine

About the Playwright:

Jovette Marchessault (1938-2012) was an award-winning Cree-Québécoise novelist, playwright, and sculptor from Montréal. Self-taught, her poignant work is marked by the harsh realities of her working-class adolescence. Her novels have won the Prix France-Québec, the Grand Prix Littéraire Journal de Montréal, and the Grand Prix Littéraire de la ville de Sherbrooke, and the Governor General's Award. As a visual artist, she had over thirty solo exhibitions of her work in Québec, Toronto, New York, and Brussels. She is also the author of a dozen plays, some of which have also been performed in English in New York, Sherbrooke, Toronto, Vancouver and Victoria, as well as in Montréal.