For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again

Marguerite Andersen is a professor of French Studies at the University
of Guelph. She is the author of Courts métrages et instantanés and La
Soupe.

Michel Tremblay’s mother died of cancer before her son achieved
worldwide success. In this exceptional work, the Quebec playwright pays
tribute to his mother, a Cree woman from Saskatchewan.

As the play opens, two people are on stage: the narrator and his
mother. With simple eloquence, they talk, among other things, about
their relationship, about love and death, about poverty and illness,
about what it means to have a vivid imagination. This “irresistible
flow of words” combines wisdom and humor. In the end, of course, there
is tragedy—but it is muted, almost gentle. The fine translation is by
the award-winning Linda Gaboriau.