Grains de Sable

“It was a smell, the smell on his clothes: the smell of a soldier. What I mean is, not…not his smell.”

Documentary play based on interviews conducted with people connected to one another by their experience of the war in Afghanistan.

Three men: a colonel, a sergeant, a corporal.

Three women, the wives of soldiers.

In an intimate setting, six actors lend their voices to these words. Composed of tableaux, the text does not tell a story but instead serves as a thread with which to retrace the significant moments in their experiences of deployment, and above all, the return home. Their words intermingle, respond to each other, and sometimes contradict each other. What interests me is not only their answers but the creation of a space of debate, exchange, and reflection, a collective questioning of our esthetic, ethical, and social convictions. With the ambition of inhabiting the singular language, the breath, the respirations of those who shared their truths with me. With the challenge of walking a tightrope between judgment and defense, absolution and condemnation of the system and its participants, in full transparency of the process. Each performance is followed by a discussion with the audience, a natural extension of the play for those who wish to express themselves.

The piece was created at Espace Libre in March of 2013. It was performed at the Valcartier military base by invitation before being performed in its final version at the bourse RIDEAU 2014 and on tour in Montreal and Quebec in 2014-2015.