Duo for Obstinate Voices: A Play

Ian C. Nelson is Assistant Director of Libraries at the University of
Saskatchewan.

Duo pour voix obstinées won the Grand Prix du Journal de Montréal in
1985 and the Governor-General’s Award in 1986. Unfortunately—like a
number of the plays of Jean Anouilh, which Duo resembles—the English
version simply doesn’t work. The English can’t quite cope with the
uncomfortable stretch between the poles of domestic relationships and
political symbolism. Pelletier, whose work includes the highly
successful Du poil aux pattes comme les cwac’s, is at pains in a short
prefatory note to draw attention to the political situation during the
five years encompassed by the play and points out a deliberate choice of
presentation: “I never explicitly mention Quebec’s vision of
independence because it is my belief that all groups, all nations have
dreams which human beings naturally carry with them.”

The result—at least in this English version—is a political intent
that becomes clear only in the latter third of the play. Leaving little
butter for one’s parsnips compared to, say, plays of similar intent by
Franзoise Loranger or Michel Tremblay. The domestic context is in fact
a frightening vision of ill-matched personalities locked in a deadly
game of humiliation. The English needs more of Edward Albee’s
trenchant qualities (in a word with several senses, cutting) and less of
Anouilh’s style of attacking the same argument from four directions.
The difficulty—if not the downright impossibility—of communication
between the two main characters (a political journalist and a
dancer/choreographer) is presented with fascinating attention, but the
middle section—especially the two scenes entitled “Staccato” and
“Adagio sostenuto”—seems to drive the points into the earth. The
fine tuning of the scenes with these musical indications reminds one of
a similar device used by Tremblay in labelling the scenes of Bonjour,
lа, bonjour as solo, duo, quartet, and so on.

The problem with Pelletier’s Duo for this reviewer is that she is at
once too subtle and not subtle enough: in other words, perhaps not quite
enough trust is given to the players who must speak the lines aloud. It
is a play that works extremely well in French, but frankly needs to be
rewritten, not translated in an English version.