Transit of Venus

Ian C. Nelson is assistant director of libraries at the University of
Saskatchewan and director of La Troupe du Jour, Regina Summer Stage.

Whatever the recent transits of Venus, Maureen Hunter seems to be
entering her own Age of Aquarius, first with her Governor General’s
Award nomination for Footprints on the Moon and now with an elegant and
witty play that has captured the particular imagination of directors and
designers. Set in 1760, 1766, and 1771, it follows the (mis)fortunes of
a French astronomer, Guillaume Le Gentil de la Galasiиre, as he roams
the globe in pursuit of fleeting opportunities for exact triangulation
of the transit of Venus, while at home he loses his fiancée and his
estate. Remarkably, the playwright achieves all this in a single set,
where characters speak with both elegance and passion in an idiom
exposing subtle secrets of the heart, which ring the plot with
resonances of Cyrano de Bergerac. So, too, the sharp wit, particularly
from the mouth of Le Gentil’s mother, Mme Sylvie. But each character
is finely drawn. This is definitely a play that deserves to become a
classic. Hunter’s research of the period (outlined in the preface) has
obviously paid off.