PL AYBILL THE JUST
THE JUST Albert Camus
Translated by Bobby Theodore }{
A pproxi m at e ru n ni ng t i m e: 1 hou r & 40 m i nu t es T her e w ill be no i n t er m ission
ARTIST NOTE: FRANK COX-O’CONNELL
In Albert Camus’ journals from the late forties there’s a one-line scrap that reads: “A play, Dora the bomb-maker: if you love nothing, this can’t end well.” He eventually turned this note into the text you’ll hear tonight. By the time the script made it to a Paris stage in 1949 Dora’s line had been changed to “nothing is simple.” There are corrupting forces in the world. These forces can strip us of our humanity. But the act of resisting the corruption – in any effective way – can in turn strip the resistor of her humanity. This is the paradox that Camus gives us: how do we reconcile moral common sense with the extremism that real change requires? Camus was writing from a Paris that was newly free from Nazi occupation, but not free from its ghosts as a colonizing oppressor: he was looking ahead as much to the problems of France-occupied Algeria as he was responding to the occupation France had just endured.
And so he did what we often do in the theatre, he looked back in order to look forward. The historical moment he chose was 1905 Moscow; a tipping point in society, two weeks after the Bloody Sunday Massacre (thousands of peaceful protesters gathered to call for better working conditions and were fired upon). He looked to the terrorist seed of the Russian Revolution as five citizens leave behind their relative privilege to make the world a better place. Camus saw that the historical lens could give perspective to his culture’s increasingly simplified conversation on the moral complexities of modern violent conflict. And on the human cost of real change. Looking back to look forward, still nothing is simple. Frank Cox-O’Connell, Director of The Just
CREATIVE TEAM
THE JUST
CAS T
Raquel Duffy Dora
Katherine Gauthier Duchess
Gregory Prest Yanek
Peter Fernandes Voinov, Foka
Diego Matamoros Boris, Skuratov
Brendan Wall Stepan, Guard
Frank Cox-O’Connell Director
Debashis Sinha Sound Designer
Ashlyn Ireland Stage Manager
Bobby Theodore Translator
Andrea Nann Movement Director
Emily Mewett Assistant Stage Manager
Ken MacKenzie Set & Lighting Designer
Kelly McEvenue Alexander Coach
Shannon Lea Doyle Costume Designer
Robert Harding Production Stage Manager
Production
SOULPEPPER PRODUC T ION
Jacqueline Robertson-Cull Head of Hair & Makeup
Emma Zulkoskey Dresser
Greg Chambers Props Builder
Geoff Hughes Cutter
Paul Boddum Interim Head Scenic Artist
Bill Stahl Carpenter
Barbara Nowakowski First Hand
Ksenia Ivanova Scenic Painter
Michael Ahn Carpentery Intern
Setting: Moscow, 1905. The terrorist’s apartment. A true story. The video and audio recording of this performance by any means whatsoever are strictly prohibited.
ILLUSTR ATION : GR AC I A L A M
BACKGROUND NOTES
Those who claim to know everything and to settle everything end up killing everything. The day comes when they have no other rule but murder ... Albert Camus grew up in Algeria, a pied noir, or French colonial. After his father died in World War I, Camus’ illiterate mother toiled as a maid for wealthy French families. His upbringing – one of the colonizers but shunned by them because of his poverty – did much to shape his outsider perspective. A revolutionary who opposed all systematic philosophies, Camus moved to France, where his sensibility met the times perfectly. His prolific output includes novels (notably The Stranger), plays, books of philosophy (The Myth of Sisyphus) and essays. In 1957 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, for the purity, concentration and rationality of his writing. Responsibility, care, and humanity are his hallmarks. He joined the Resistance movement during the Nazi occupation and became a memorable newspaper columnist after the war, befriending intellectuals like JeanPaul Sartre. Les Justes premiered in 1949. Its powerful exploration of the use and limits of political violence stirred up painful memories of the Resistance for its Parisian audiences. The play – inspired by the assassination of the Russian Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich in 1905 – is strikingly topical today, with groups like ISIS and Boko Haram attempting on a near daily basis to make political points by bombing civilians. Camus takes us behind the scenes of a single terrorist attack, so we meet the people behind the balaclavas. We are privy to – and implicated in – every decision, justification and action before and during the attack, as well as its consequences.
The bombers are individual human beings: one wants to create a more just society, another, brutalized by life, dreams of brutalizing it in return. Each of them seeks meaning in their own way. Camus takes no position: he simply asks us to wrestle with a single burning question: are these people revolutionaries or are they murderers? Savour this rare opportunity to engage with a stirring writer at the height of his powers. Play wright Biography
Albert Camus was born in French-occupied Algeria in 1913. At 17 he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, from which he suffered all his life. He personally financed his studies at the University of Algiers, where he was goalkeeper for the football team. He was a leading intellectual light in France almost as soon as he moved there in 1938, publishing novels, plays and works of philosophy over a career that was cut tragically short in 1960 by a car accident. T R ANSL AT OR Biography
Bobby Theodore is a screenwriter, playwright, and translator. A Governor General’s Award nominee, Bobby has translated over 20 plays from French to English. He’s currently working on Swallow, a play set in the drama-filled world of minor hockey. His translation of François Archambault’s You Will Remember Me will be staged at Tarragon Theatre this spring. Bobby is the resident dramaturge of the Glassco Translation Residency in Tadoussac, Quebec.
Background Notes by 2016 Soulpepper Resident Artist Paula Wing
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