Ludwig & Mae

La Litière (1994), Rappel (1995) and Ressusciter (1996), published together here in English translation as Embedded, Apocalypse, and Resurrection respectively, make up a trilogy of plays featuring Gen-Xers Ludwig and Mae. Ludwig, trained as an engineer, hasn’t been able to find work since graduating some time ago. The fact that he is sardonic, philosophically inclined and suicidal hasn’t helped in this regard. Mae, on the other hand, is an actress who has never been out of work. Caught in a perverse relationship, she plays into Ludwig’s constant mind games until one day she decides she’s had enough. Embedded establishes their twisted Strindbergian relationship, while introducing the Philosopher-cum-Chinese Delivery Guy—the absurdist character who acts as a catalyst for the simmering emotional crisis about to explode. Apocalypse is a monodrama in which Ludwig stages his own suicidal ceremonial (along with unlikely allegorical characters such as a Pope, Giacometti’s Cow and a Leather-Clad Muse). Resurrection is Mae’s testimonial, where she confronts and reconciles herself with Ludwig’s death, breaks the cycle of their co-dependency, and finally comes into her own.

Together, these plays literally “stage” the internalized and therefore repressed failure of the search for an authentic life in art: the decorative nihilism of the post-modern ethos. Taking us on a cathartic journey from despair to exhilaration—at times perilous, comic, edgy and passionate—Ludwig & Mae releases its audiences from the artificial dark of the theatre into the liberating light of day, radiant with a new understanding: life does not imitate art, life makes art.

This trilogy established Louis Patrick Leroux as a leading figure of the Franco-Ontarian artistic renaissance of the 1990s. Rappel Apocalypse, in particular, was quickly identified as a turning point from what had become a stultifying, identity-driven literary tradition, to a burgeoning of artistic freedom and formal exploration.

AUTHOR

Shelley Tepperman

Shelley is a Toronto-born, Montreal-based writer, dramaturge, and translator. Working from French, Spanish, and Italian, she has brought more than twenty-five plays into English, including Serge Boucher’s Natures Mortes and Les Bonbons qui sauvent la vie. Shelley’s translations have been produced at CBC Radio and on stages from coast to coast, and she was twice nominated for the Governor General’s Literary Award in Translation. From 1994–1998 she worked for CBC Radio developing, adapting, and producing radio dramas for broadcast. Shelley also writes, story-edits, and directs for documentary film and television. She is working on a “Jewish” adaptation of 24 Exposures.

AUTHOR

Louis Patrick Leroux

Louis Patrick Leroux is an associate professor in both the English and French departments at Concordia University. A playwright and theatre director, he is also a scholar whose academic research focuses on cultural discourse, research-creation, Québec theatre, and contemporary circus. He was playwright in residence at Sudbury’s Théâtre du Nouvel-Ontario (1993–94, 2005–06, and 2006–07), the Leighton Artists’ Studios at the Banff Centre for the Arts in 1994, and the CEAD International playwrights residency in 1999. He founded and managed Ottawa’s Théâtre la Catapulte in the 1990s and has since focused on impossible, improbable, and necessary drama.

Reviews

“… audacious avant-garde spectacles of sexual and cruel impulses.”
Jane Moss


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La Litière (1994), Rappel (1995) and Ressusciter (1996), published together here in English translation as Embedded, Apocalypse, and Resurrection respectively, make up a trilogy of plays featuring Gen-Xers Ludwig and Mae. Ludwig, trained as an engineer, hasn’t been able to find work since graduating some time ago. The fact that he is sardonic, philosophically inclined and suicidal hasn’t helped in this regard. Mae, on the other hand, is an actress who has never been out of work. Caught in a perverse relationship, she plays into Ludwig’s constant mind games until one day she decides she’s had enough. Embedded establishes their twisted Strindbergian relationship, while introducing the Philosopher-cum-Chinese Delivery Guy—the absurdist character who acts as a catalyst for the simmering emotional crisis about to explode. Apocalypse is a monodrama in which Ludwig stages his own suicidal ceremonial (along with unlikely allegorical characters such as a Pope, Giacometti’s Cow and a Leather-Clad Muse). Resurrection is Mae’s testimonial, where she confronts and reconciles herself with Ludwig’s death, breaks the cycle of their co-dependency, and finally comes into her own.

Together, these plays literally “stage” the internalized and therefore repressed failure of the search for an authentic life in art: the decorative nihilism of the post-modern ethos. Taking us on a cathartic journey from despair to exhilaration—at times perilous, comic, edgy and passionate—Ludwig & Mae releases its audiences from the artificial dark of the theatre into the liberating light of day, radiant with a new understanding: life does not imitate art, life makes art.

This trilogy established Louis Patrick Leroux as a leading figure of the Franco-Ontarian artistic renaissance of the 1990s. Rappel Apocalypse, in particular, was quickly identified as a turning point from what had become a stultifying, identity-driven literary tradition, to a burgeoning of artistic freedom and formal exploration.

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Details

Dimensions:

224 Pages
8.5in * 216mm * 5.5in * 140mm * 0.625in16mm
322gr
11.375oz

Published:

August 31, 2009

City of Publication:

Vancouver

Country of Publication:

CA

Publisher:

Talonbooks

ISBN:

9780889226234

Book Subjects:

DRAMA / Canadian

Featured In:

All Books

Language:

eng

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