CANMORE— Inviting audiences to participate in an intimate evening unpacking her life, a francophone artist is bringing her one-woman show to Canmore.
Josée Thibeault is the writer and actor of the play La Fille du Facteur (The Postman’s Daughter).
“It’s a mix of storytelling, spoken word poetry and visuals,” Thibeault said. “Some parts are kind of funny and a bit light and other parts are more dramatic– it’s very rhythmic and easy to follow”
La Fille du Facteur is produced by L'UniThéâtre a francophone theatre company based in Edmonton. Thibeault originally presented the play last year and had the opportunity to travel to Ottawa to showcase her work at the francophone festival Zones Théâtrales.
The play is an autobiographical story Thibeault said explaining that she drew on personal experience taking audiences on a journey from her time growing up in Quebec and her travels across Canada.
Thibeault said she was compelled to travel and the play includes her departure from the province, arriving first in Banff before bouncing back to Montreal before eventually moving and settling down in Edmonton.
She uses her time on stage to contrast her nomad life with that of her father a postman who settled and lived a sedentary life.
“He did walk a lot and he had this trajectory that was sort of like mine from east to west,” Thibeault said. “I like to work with those metaphors and images.”
Prior to her departure back to the prairies Thibeault said her father began to lose his memories and sense of orientation.
“We found out he had brain cancer,” she said and she was left grieving the loss of her dad.
As she unpacked the experience Thibeault came to recognize that she is a lot like him. That realization inspired her to create La Fille Du Facteur.
It is an extremely personal story that seems to connect with audiences, she said, especially in transient towns like Canmore and Banff where many people have moved to the community.
“A lot of people here in Alberta they come from somewhere else sometimes and they ended up here and they feel good. They decided to stay, but there’s always there is this whole guilt about why I didn’t stay home,” Thibeault said. “A lot of people relate to that story.”
She added that people are also familiar with the story of losing a loved one to cancer or another deadly disease.
Thibeault that she is excited to bring Le Fille Du Facteur to Canmore to share with audiences, especially because subtitles will be available for audiences who are not fluent francophones.
“I think in Canmore it’s going to be interesting because I'm talking as a young traveller getting to Banff to Canmore looking for work in the summer and feeling this freedom and this first taste of travel,” Thibeault said, explaining the important role Banff has played in her life and in her career— including numerous artist residency’s she has participated in at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.
“Banff is a really special place, the energy there is very, very special and I’m always really inspired when I go there.”
Thibeault will be presenting La Fille du Facteur in Canmore on March 5 at artsPlace.
