Winner of the Governor General’s Award for Drama, A Live Bird in its Jaws is a play within a play. Hélène is writing a play which draws heavily on the past of her lover Xavier and his twin brother Adrien. The brothers reluctantly agree to perform the parts Hélène has written for them, but she refuses to reveal the ending until the actual staging of the piece. A storm prevents the rest of the cast from coming, but the brothers begin their lines, which lead inevitably to the tragic ending Hélène did not want to write.

A Live Bird in its Jaws, Yves Saint-Pierre’s translation of Jeanne-Mance Delisle’s Un oiseau vivant dans la gueule, is stunning in its clarity. Seduced by both the language and the images, we are drawn into the heavy beauty of this drama. Toronto’s Theatre Passe Muraille premiered the English production A Live Bird in its Jaws.