It is in the fall, off-season for a ski chalet, yet there is still excitement.
A woman has disappeared. She returns, but it is not the same woman according to her husband.
The police get involved and they are convinced she is who she says she is.
“Oh boy,” is all that Pierre Gauthier will say when I ask him, “What happens next?”
“You will change your mind three times during the play,” says the director of Piège pour un homme seul, a play presented in French that will show one time only, Friday, March 6, at the Yukon Arts Centre.
“It will only be resolved at the very end.
“I saw this play in 2001,” he continues. “It was very good; I liked it. You sit on the edge of your seat; it holds you captive.”
This play is the first for the Yukon’s newest theatre company, Art-Lequin & Co.
It got its start when Les EssentiElles members considered the idea of presenting a play. As luck would have it, the Association franco-yukonnaise building manager was active in the theatre in his last hometown, Mont-Laurier, Québec, 200 kilometres north of Montréal.
There, he and his troupe found success by presenting the play, Twelve Angry Men. They sold 4,000 tickets in a town with a population of 8,000.
They took the play on tour in Europe.
Then they organized a festival that attracted theatre companies from 32 countries. This year, it will be 35.
So, as he is “half-retired” here in Whitehorse, Gauthier took on the project.
He obtained funding from New Horizons for Seniors, a federal program that encourages activities for senior citizens.
Three of the six-member cast are over the age of 50 and most of the behind-the-scenes people – makeup, costumes, set – are seniors.
Since funding is “a one-shot deal”, Gauthier hopes to keep the theatre company together to hold auditions for the next play, Twelve Angry Men.
“It is very easy for me to work in French,” he says, “but the next one, I hope, will be bilingual.
“If we want to make money, we need to make it for the English, too.”
Meanwhile, Piège pour un homme seul, written by Robert Thomas, will be shown at the Yukon Arts Centre to take advantage of its large capacity for its one-and-only show.
“And it is the best facility,” says Gauthier. “It has all the facilities for lights and sound.”
But to get ready, space has been found at École Émilie-Tremblay to set up the lights.
Gauthier says that is necessary to get the makeup and costumes just right.
Tickets are available at the Yukon Arts Centre Box Office and Arts Underground. From the $25 ticket price, $10 will be donated to the Whitehorse Food Bank.
There will be a shuttle service from the Association franco-yukonnaise building at 7:30 p.m.
Gauthier says the material is suitable for teenagers and older as one character dies, but without blood.
