The Dragonfly of Chicoutimi: Larry Tremblay revises English in this ground breaking play
Gaston Talbot, an elderly man from Chicoutimi, tells the story of his childhood the way he remembers it. Only, as he digs deeper into his past, the story keeps on changing.
So does the leit-motif of the play “I travel a lot,” and with it, Gaston’s motto, ”To keep in touch.”
As a sixteen years old boy, in search of friendship and a need to fit in, Gaston somehow lost himself. His childhood, spent in the nearby woods, ended in a terrifying experience, which left him unable to speak. He fell into a complete silence. Years later, a strange dream liberated him, so that he could finally tell his story. In doing so, he discovered that the self-alienation was so strong that he, who never knew a word of any language but French, could speak only in English, or, rather, in a French structure expressed in English words.