Scorched

Wajdi Mouawad’s writing is powerful; a beautifully penned story that paves a path to a mother’s unspeakable pain. The closer Janine and Simon get to finding the source of her silence, the closer they are to uncovering a tragedy so horrific it will engulf the world they know. Continuing his quest for sense and beauty, Wajdi Mouawad has plunged into the turbulent depths of writing to discover, washed up midst the sand dunes, fiery tales lost in the mists of time. Making their way through the dunes are Nawal’s twin children, Janine and Simon, who want to solve the mystery of their origins. In retracing the bitter history of their mother, other characters come into the story—witnesses or key players able to assist in the investigation. Carried aloft by poetic language, the inquiry pursued by Janine and Simon unfolds in a dreamlike atmosphere that cultivates the mystery surrounding a knife thrust into the heart of childhood.

AUTHOR

Wajdi Mouawad

Over the past twenty years Wajdi Mouawad has established himself, both in Canada and in Europe, as a uniquely original player on the contemporary theatre scene, acclaimed for his direct and uncompromising narratives and his spare and compelling theatre aesthetic. In all his work, from his own plays (over fifteen to date, including Tideline, Scorched, Forests and Heavens and adaptations (including Ce´line’s Journey to the End of the Night and Cervantes’ Don Quixote), the productions he has directed (including Macbeth, The Trojan Women and Three Sisters), to novels (Visage Retrouve´, Anima) Wajdi Mouawad expresses the conviction that “art bears witness to human existence through the prism of beauty.” Wajdi Mouawad’s plays have been translated in more than twenty languages and presented in all parts of the world, including Great-Britain, Germany

AUTHOR

Linda Gaboriau

Linda Gaboriau is a Montreal-based dramaturge and literary translator. She has worked as a freelance journalist for the CBC as well as the Montreal Gazette, and worked in Canadian and Quebecois theatre. Gaboriau has won awards for her translations of more than 100 plays and novels by Quebec writers, including many of the Quebec plays best known to English Canadian audiences. She is the founding director of the Banff International Literary Translation Centre.

Reviews

“This haunting work may be the best piece of theatre this country has produced this millennium.” —Globe and Mail
“Mouawad knows when to lighten the load with broad comedy, when to scent the air with poetry that lingers long afterwards, and when to use the inevitable building blocks of good dramatic structure to create a towering edifice of pain everyone must climb.” —The Toronto Star