Writing
Michel Tremblay
Born 1942-06-25 · Montréal, Québec, Canada
Michel Tremblay (born 25 June 1942) is a French-Canadian novelist and playwright. Tremblay was born in Montreal, Quebec, where he grew up in the French-speaking neighbourhood of Plateau Mont-Royal; at the time of his birth, a neighbourhood with a working-class character and joual dialect - something that would heavily influence his work. Tremblay's first professionally produced play, Les Belles-Sœurs, was written in 1965 and premiered at the Théâtre du Rideau Vert on August 28, 1968. It transformed the old guard of Canadian theatre and introduced joual to the mainstream. It stirred up controversy by portraying the lives of working-class women and attacking the strait-laced, deeply religious society of mid-20th century Quebec. The most profound and lasting effects of Tremblay's early plays, including Hosanna and La Duchesse de Langeais, were the barriers they toppled in Quebec society. Until the Quiet Revolution of the early 1960s, Tremblay saw Quebec as a poor, working-class province dominated by an English-speaking elite and the Roman Catholic Church. Tremblay's work was part of a vanguard of liberal, nationalist thought that helped create an essentially modern society. His most famous plays are usually centred on gay characters. The first Canadian play about and starring a drag queen was his play Hosanna, which was first performed at Théâtre de Quat'Sous in Montreal in 1973. The women in his plays are usually strong but possessed with demons they must vanquish. It is said he sees Quebec as a matriarchal society. He is considered one of the best playwrights for women. In the late 1980s, Les Belles-sœurs ("The Sisters-in-Law") was produced in Scotland in Scots, as The Guid-Sisters ("guid-sister" being Scots for "sister-in-law"). His work has been translated into many languages, including Yiddish, and including such works as Sainte-Carmen de la Main, Ç'ta ton tour, Laura Cadieux, and Forever Yours, Marilou (À toi pour toujours, ta Marie-Lou). He has been openly gay throughout his public life, and he has written many novels (The Duchess and the Commoner, La nuit des princes charmants, Le Coeur découvert, Le Coeur éclaté) and plays (Hosanna, La duchesse de Langeais, Fragments de mensonges inutiles) centred on gay characters. In a 1987 interview with Shelagh Rogers for CBC Radio's The Arts Tonight, he remarked that he has always avoided behaviours he has considered masculine; for example, he does not smoke and he noted that he was 45 years old and did not know how to drive a car. "I think I am a rare breed," he said, "A homosexual who doesn't like men." He claims one of his biggest regrets in life was not telling his mother that he was gay before she died. ... Source: Article "Michel Tremblay" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Acting credits
6.3The story of Germaine Lauzon, a housewife who wins a million stamps which, she believes, will allow her access to happiness and a new world that she has dreamed of for so long. But her joy will make some people jealous...
Sisters and Neighbors!
2024
5.7Louis Jobin is an ordinary young man from Montreal who sells televisions at an electronics store. He wins a contest sponsored by the local cable company in which the first prize is that he'll be followed non-stop by a camera crew, with the footage broadcast live on Channel 19. Unfortunately, his ordinary life is so ordinary, despite the best efforts of his starstruck mother, that the producers attempt to spice things up behind his back.
Louis the 19th, King of the Airwaves
1994
8.0Quebec, on the cusp of the 1960s. The province is on the brink of momentous change. Deftly selecting clips from nearly 200 films from the National Film Board of Canada archives, director Luc Bourdon reinterprets the historical record, offering us a new and distinctive perspective on the Quiet Revolution.
The Devil's Share
2018
NRNo synopsis available yet.
L'osstidquoi ? L'osstidcho!
2023
7.0Backyard Theatre is a documentary about playwright Michel Tremblay and director André Brassard’s flavourful brand of Quebec theatre, which captured the earthy wit and joual (slang) of Montreal's East End working-class neighbourhood. The film features impromptu improvisation by the cast of Les belles-soeurs and Demain matin, Montréal m'attend, two genre-defining plays.
Backyard Theatre
1973
9.0Fiction bleeds into reality. Women declare themselves pregnant with the letter E! Denzel Washington plays himself in a popular sitcom. Chaos reigns and cops crave poetry. Mélusine Catafor abandons her identity in the city of Three-Rivers to seek a new one in Montreal where she hopes to learn English and where her best friend, Marie-Cobra Tremblay strives to birth an Odyssey. Rosaire, a melancholic pastor, organizes a major conference on Impossible Loves. Also, you'll meet La Renarde who hides a hole-punch in her coat. You'll learn the hole-punch is a formidable weapon used to pierce the ears of alley cats. As you can imagine, it's a comedy.
There Are No False Undertakings
2020
NRNo synopsis available yet.
La tête au neutre
1972
NRNo synopsis available yet.
Le diable en canot d'écorce
2017
“Fiction is a letter that I’m writing to myself to make sense of the world.” These are the words of Michel Tremblay and the opening of this delicate and touching documentary that explores the creative mind behind Les Belles Soeurs. From Glasgow to Tokyo, from Key West to Montreal, In the Hands of Michel Tremblay sensitively paints the portrait of a singular career.
In the Hands of Michel Tremblay
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Behind the camera
NRHosanna is a 1973 play by French-Canadian writer Michel Tremblay. The story takes place in the Montreal, Quebec apartment of Hosanna, a drag queen dressed as Elizabeth Taylor's Cleopatra, and centres on the relationship between her and Cuirette, an aging "stud" and gay biker, after they have returned from a Halloween party. The play deals with several issues including gender identity, sexual identity, the ignorance and acceptance of ageing, and social expressions of homosexuality. Hosanna discusses her relationship with her mother and shows her anxieties over her knowledge of who she really is.
Hosanna
1991
3.3A grocery-store worker in a small Canadian town gets a chance to appear on a popular television game show.
Geraldine's Fortune
2004
5.3Two women and a transvestite gay man cross paths in this French Canadian drama. The transvestite is preparing for a drag-queen beauty pageant, and has decided to present himself as Cleopatra. Of the two women, one was just fired from her waitressing job and seeks to go back to work at the nightclub where the beauty pageant is to be held. The other woman's mother has just won one million food stamps.
Once Upon a Time in the East
1974
NRA day in the life of two Québec families reunited for their children's wedding.
Le grand jour
1988
8.030-year-old Quebec City native Gisèle lives a quiet life as a secretary without happiness with her parents and siblings. One day, tired of being teased by her office mates, she decides to consult a marriage agency to find her soul mate.
The Late Blossom
1977
7.4A stranger comes to a peaceful village bearing gifts that bear a terrible price.
The Wanderer
1988
9.0A television host tries to react to the process of alienation that the public is subjected to from variety shows.
Talk About Love
1976
9.0No synopsis available yet.
Albertine in Five Times
2000
6.3Fictional character played by 24 different actresses, Françoise Durocher is altogether small time waitress, hostess and barmaid. Together, according to the author, they represent the archetypical Québec waitress that everyday waits on us with a smile, despite whatever problems she faces in her personal life. First cinematographic experience of the Brassard-Tremblay tandem, this film full of ironic joy details all the nuances of the waitress living conditions.
Françoise Durocher, waitress
1972