Theatre
Laurier: Sex, Power and Canadian History
BY David Balzer February 13, 2008 16:02
‘I like all the wonderful monsters,” says VideoCabaret’s Michael Hollingsworth, when asked to identify his favourite figures from Canadian history — the mainline of which has, more or less, now been depicted in his sprawling, 23-years-and-counting satirical play cycle, The History of the Village of the Small Huts. “All the famous ones — Donnacona, Jacques Cartier, Champlain, Brébeuf, Frontenac, Wolfe — they were all fascinating fiends.”
What to make, then, of his latest addition, Laurier? Sure, Sir Wilfrid remains a massive figure, an effective precursor to Trudeau, who idolized him, but he’s by no means a monster. His official legacy, in fact, is that oh-so-Canadian of traits, compromise — from The Manitoba Schools Question, to conscription, to issues of national unity.
“His sex life is of interest,” rebuts Hollingsworth, immediately. “Actually, that makes him not boring at all. John A. MacDonald was such a ferocious alcoholic, and alcoholics of course have no sex life; it’s impossible. But they were both serious power junkies. For Laurier, it was about sex as well as power.”
“Actually, I can’t imagine a more compartmentalized individual than Wilfrid Laurier,” he adds. This was indeed so much the case that no one knew of the intrigue surrounding him until years after his death, when letters were released revealing his long-standing affair with Emilie Lavergne, wife of his best friend and putative mother of his illegitimate child, Armand. As if this weren’t saucy enough, Armand grew up to be Laurier’s opponent, an ally of his political arch-nemesis Henri Bourassa, for what Hollingsworth describes as “deeply personal” as well as professional reasons.
“[Armand Lavergne] thought that Laurier had wrecked his father’s life, had turned his mother into his personal whore,” he says. “He was an extremely disturbed individual, particularly because his mother used to dress him up to look like Laurier, and bring a tutor in to make him sound like him, too. It broke Laurier’s heart in the end, because he was raising [Armand] to be his replacement in politics. This is in essence what the play is about.”
Those familiar with VideoCabaret’s style — in which exaggeratedly-costumed actors perform in a small box, highlighted by small shafts of light — will be able to form a picture of what this highly-pitched tale will look like on stage. As Hollingsworth is known for taking aesthetic cues from the time periods he is representing, Laurier will in part be a spicy homage to the belle époque farces of Georges Feydeau.
“It’s such an odd consensus that the majority of Canadians have come to: let’s put the history of Canada under a giant snowbank and never look at it again,” Hollingsworth laments. “The great stereotype that the history of Canada is a dull, deadly boring, dreary, dismal thing couldn’t be more false. It’s violent and sexy. It’s the stuff that great plays are made of.”
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