La petite poule d’eau (The Little Water Hen). Strong Community Theatre Adaptation of the Novel by Gabrielle Roy .
This adaptation for the stage by Irène Mahé and Claude Dorge, from the novel by Gabrielle Roy, was first performed by the Circle Molière in Saint Boniface in 1992. It was then mounted at the Théâtre du Nouvel Ontario in Sudbury. The story of the poor Tousignant family living on an isolated island on the Petite Poule d’Eau River takes place in 1937. Gabrielle Roy who then went on to write The Tin Flute (Bonheur d’occasion) became one of the important Francophone writers of her era. Here, her novel has captured many apsects of the life of the French Canadians living in the Manitoba wilderness and it is clear that this stage version has retained much of the legendary perhaps even stereotypical quality of that life.