Michel Tremblay

An imaginative and prolific author, Michel Tremblay has been writing plays, novels, song lyrics and librettos for over 60 years. His affection for his mother and aunts, cabaret performers, prostitutes, transvestites and the disenfranchised runs through all his work, and has spawned an ensemble of tragicomic characters who intertwine in a microcosm that the author continues to explore today. Rooted in Quebec society, using joual since the late 1960s and translated into some 30 languages, his theatrical work features choruses, songs, apparitions and doubling that distance him from realism. He has translated and adapted the works of several foreign authors, particularly Americans. A stage adaptation by Tremblay and André Brassard of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata was the very first French-language play presented at the NAC when it opened in June 1969. The world premieres of his plays Bonjour, là, bonjour (1974) and Albertine, en cinq temps (1984) were also presented by NAC French Theatre.