Elisa's Skin [2000]
(in Carole Fréchette : Three Plays, Playwrights Canada Press, 2002)
Original
Résumé A woman tells delicate tales of love. She insists on the minute and most intimate
details: the beating heart, the sweaty palms, and the skin that shivers to the touch. She evokes the memory of crazy Sigfried, of Jan who wanted it all
right now and, of Edmond who waited for her under the trees, and also of chubby Ginette, and of Anna who told her things that we all dream of hearing. She speaks feverishly as though she is in danger, as though her heart, her life, her skin depend on it. Little by little, through her portraits, she reveals what it is that drives her to tell stories and lets us in on the strange secret
that a young man shared with her one day, in a coffee shop. Extrait « ÉLISA: […] He tells me: "Love stories - when they come up from deep inside you, as they pass through your throat and on towards your lips - they release a rare sort of chemical which is absorbed into your skin, and which prevents the skin cells from multiplying.". I am about to tell him, "You must be crazy.". But I stop myself. I keep my promise. » Revue de presse "This short play has a bittersweet irony, a freshness mixed
with despair that expresses to a tee the drama of this woman suddenly assailed by the fear of growing old." Hervé Guay, Le Devoir, March 1998 |