The Colouring of Mind and Memory in Le Dire de Di.
Student review by Hannah Skrypnyk in the theatre criticism class of Janne Cleveland (Carleton University) The play was written and performed in French.
How do we deal with painful memories and intimate stories that beg to be told? In La Nouvelle Scène’s production of Michel Ouellette’s one-woman show, Le Dire de Di, director Joël Beddows crisply weaves together the notions of female sexuality and the threat of land exploitation through a series of memories divulged by a sensitive, expressive sixteen-year-old girl. Throughout the play, Di, which fittingly suggests the word “say” in French, leads us through the intricate and sometimes murky details of her past, the history of her family, and the incidents that have come to shape her world. While both the writing and Marie-Ève Fontaine’s performance maintain a high-calibre throughout, what gives this production its richness is the way in which Beddows portrays the gravity of Di’s memories through a first-class use of design elements.
Upon entering the theatre, the audience is greeted by a square black riser on which Di sits in almost complete darkness, surrounded only by four large, wooden squares that resemble empty picture frames. The frames are positioned in a vertical line, each on a distinct angle, so as to give the effect that the stage has greater depth and extends backwards boundlessly. These frames act as a symbol of Di’s interiority, and as she moves in and around them throughout the play, we are given more insight and access to her story. As Di begins her memoiresque narrative, she sits on a wooden chair with her back to us. Her speech is slightly echoed, and she slowly moves her body and limbs like an insect on its back whilst describing herself as the “main course” on the dinner table. As she speaks these peculiar lines, the lights are dim and the audience can only slightly see the chair she sits on so that it seems she is floating through a sea of darkness. At this time, we cannot place Di; we cannot see her face and her words have not yet offered us any clarity about who she is or where her story will take us. Then, Di begins to describe her own birth, sticking her head through the last frame at the back of the stage and out again to finally face the audience for the first time; the frame serves as a womb from which Di emerges and begins to narrate the particulars of her life. As the play continues, it is almost as if Di fills each blank frame, each bit of emptiness and obscurity with pictures, memories and defining moments that showcase her inner self and subjectivity—a young woman is birthed and given shape right before our eyes.
In company with the set, Beddows’ use of lighting and sound design also plays a crucial role in exhibiting the visceral, inner workings of Di’s mind and memories, both traumatic and formative. This is perhaps best demonstrated when the audience is first introduced to Di’s memory of Peggy, a young woman who works for the mining company that threatens to jeopardize Di’s family home and land. After recounting some basic details of her family life, Di says, “Then I met Peggy”. With this line, the lights rapidly dim as Di begins to stomp her feet, monotonously repeating the word “Peggy”. Then, a strong yellow wash is cast over the stage and a pulsing, mechanical sound sets in, slowly growing louder and louder.
In this moment, the audience is uncomfortable, leery, and we immediately understand that we are about to enter something unnatural; the memory, we think, will likely be hellish. However, this is not what we are given. Through what follows, Beddows complicates the memory of Peggy, the character of Di, and establishes both the turmoil and excitement that is present in a teenager discovering their own sexuality. Following this strange, ominous and unnerving moment, Peggy steps back into the first frame—back inside her memory—and says, “It starts with Peggy”. Suddenly, the mechanical sounds are replaced with birds chirping and the wash slowly shifts from a harsh, unnatural yellow to a soft orange hue.
The colour shift is gradual and not as overtly different as say, a yellow to a blue or red, but the tone that is created from these changes is something entirely new to us. The orange hue mimics a calming, picturesque sunset and alongside the soft sounds of birds chirping, we are given an idyllic, almost pastoral setting in which Di begins her remembrance of the first day she met Peggy.
Although this representation of memory—an overly ideal and symbolic space—is a familiar trope, it works perfectly in this scene and highlights both the impressionability and the highly imaginative worlds that teenagers often reside in. What Beddows so exquisitely offers us in this scene is the way in which Di doubly views her feelings toward Peggy. On the one hand, she seems to believe that there is something inherently unnatural and downright terrifying embedded in her desire for Peggy, clearly illustrated by the industrial, foreboding pre-memory setting, but on the other hand, her memory of her first day with Peggy is akin to something taken out of a romance novel. Not only does this illuminate Di’s uncertainty about her sexuality, but also the fact that this person she feels so strongly for will eventually be a part of the force which tears her family home and history apart. Although she is experiencing a memory in the past, Di ultimately cannot forget what has already unfolded and so we get this kind of double vision, wonderfully magnified by Beddows careful lighting and sound choices.
Though the play successfully and shrewdly raises questions of sexuality and environmental degradation, I would argue that where it truly triumphs is in its ability to bring together, on one, unchanging set, the depth and complexity that exists inside our minds and the difficulties we often experience in living both inside and outside of our memories. This alone is a feat and makes Le Dire de Di a highly worthwhile production.