Ciseaux: A beautiful story told with heartbreaking clarity

What a treat! An unbelievable experience such as this, a journey as much painful as it is beautiful, happens only once in a while on the stage. And it happened during the world premiere of Ciseaux, the inaugural project by The THÉÂTRE ROUGE ÉCARLATE, the first out of – I hope – many to come!

The play follows the lives of two schoolgirls during a civil war. Two seemingly completely different destinies become intertwined in a time of chaos by the violent actions taking place around them. The harsh fate brings them together to fight for survival and to bond into an inseparable unity.

Lisa L’Heureux wrote an incredibly moving story about a very turbulent time seen through the eyes of two young girl victims. One was forced to be a child-fighter, an unwilling murderer who goes on pretending that she is a boy in order to protect herself. The other’s life, a casualty of the same madness, is changed from the moment her parents are killed and she is taken prisoner to be made into a sex slave. Events that follow one another logically are set in a perfect frame and told at a perfect pace.

The angle that the play explores allows for a different approach. The story is told through pure emotions so adroitly that every moment and every sentence uttered leaves its own mark. The audience felt the anger, fear, confusion, sadness, and longing. Each segment gradually added to the narrative and built the events. Slowly, step-by-step, every idea falls into place, connecting to the entirety and themes and creating the magic.

Lissa Léger and Marie-Ève Fontaine gave brillant performances. They altered between innumerable feelings with ease and a natural transition, so that every moment felt real. In the roles of their respective characters, they looked and sounded natural and absolutely convincing. They managed to transport the audience to a complex and difficult time and place, as well as to the realm of unleashed emotions.  Definitely, Lisa L’Heureux, Lissa Léger and Marie-Ève Fontaine created theatre at its best. No wonder that the audience could not stop calling them back to the stage.

Ciseaux is part of this year’s Undercurrents Festival.

Production: A THÉÂTRE ROUGE ÉCARLATE (Ottawa, ON) production

Written and directed by Lisa L’Heureux

Performed by Lissa Léger & Marie-Ève Fontaine

Plays in Great Canadian Theatre, February 11, 2014 – February 23, 2014

Presented in French with English surtitles