Playing Bare

By (author): Dominic Champagne

Translated by: Shelley Tepperman

Witty, prickly and fresh, Playing Bare is a mordant satire on the relation between theatre and life. An accomplished actress is on the verge of a nervous breakdown as she directs Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. In her deranged effort to expose the emptiness of playing fictional characters, she casts the lead roles with a pair of non-actors whose lives mirror those of the characters they play. Her search for the ultimate theatrical experience—life becoming art—takes the action in hilarious and insightful directions.

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

Dominic Champagne

Born in Sorel, Québec in 1963, Dominic Champagne is one of the leading Québécois playwrights of his generation. Also an accomplished director, he is the artistic director at Théâtre Il Va Sans Dire, which he co-founded in 1981. He has written over ten plays, including La Cité Interdite, Import-Export and Le Soldat Inconnu. His most recent projects include Hugo ou la Vengeance de Calypso, co-written with two writers from the French Caribbean, and Cabaret Neiges Noires, written in collaboration with Jean-François Caron, Jean-Frédéric Messier, and Pascale Rafie. In addition to writing for television, Champagne teaches playwriting at the National Theatre School of Canada, is a founding member of l’Association Québécois des Auteurs Dramatiques, and is a member of Cead (Centre des auteurs dramatiques). Playing Bare (1993) is his first play in translation. La Répétition, in its original French, was awarded the Québec Theatre Critic’s prize for the best play of the 1990 season, and was short-listed for the Governor General’s Award for French drama. La Répétition was filmed by Radio Canada and for Les Beaux Dimanches.

Awards

  • Governor General’s Literary Award for Translation 1994, Short-listed
  • Excerpts & Samples ×

    Witty, prickly and fresh, Playing Bare is a mordant satire on the relation between theatre and life. An accomplished actress is on the verge of a nervous breakdown as she directs Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. In her deranged effort to expose the emptiness of playing fictional characters, she casts the lead roles with a pair of non-actors whose lives mirror those of the characters they play. Her search for the ultimate theatrical experience—life becoming art—takes the action in hilarious and insightful directions.

    Reader Reviews

    Details

    Dimensions:

    112 Pages
    8.5in * 216mm * 5.5in * 140mm * 0.4375in11mm
    170gr
    6oz

    Published:

    January 01, 1993

    City of Publication:

    Vancouver

    Country of Publication:

    CA

    Publisher:

    Talonbooks

    ISBN:

    9780889223356

    Book Subjects:

    DRAMA / Canadian

    Featured In:

    All Books

    Language:

    eng

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