Un. Deux. Trois. features a huge cast of French-speaking performers from different regions and different backgrounds, and is described as being without precedent in the history of francophone theatre in Canada.Jonathan Lorange/Supplied
Identity is never as easy as one, two, three.
That’s the main take-away of Un. Deux. Trois., a trio of plays starring one, two and 36 performers, respectively, being presented in a four-and-a-half-hour marathon performance, now on tour across the country.
The project features a huge cast of French-speaking performers from different regions and different backgrounds, and is described as being without precedent in the history of francophone theatre in Canada.
Is this the Canadian Francophonie finally uniting to fight its linguistic battles together and speak as one? Ben non. It’s more like a cacophony.
Mani Soleymanlou, a playwright, director and performer who now runs the French Theatre at National Arts Centre, is the main artistic force behind Un. Deux. Trois., which I saw during their stop at Théâtre français de Toronto in association with Canadian Stage.
Soleymanlou has spent more than a decade now writing and performing plays about identity that simultaneously deconstruct the idea of identity.
Un, which had its world premiere in 2012, is the first of these, and constitutes the first section of Un. Deux. Trois. The autobiographical solo show remains the most straightforward in terms of its depiction of a quête d’identité. (If identity is a more difficult subject en français than in English, maybe it’s because francophones embark on an “identity quest” rather than a mere “search” like anglos do.)
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Standing on stage amid a grid of chairs (occupied by the other performers, who remain almost entirely silent for this touring version), Soleymanlou tells us his story of his evolving identity in a roundabout way. He was born in Iran, and in the 1980s his family was one of hundreds of thousands that emigrated in the wake of the Islamic Revolution and amid the destruction of the Iran-Iraq war.
First, he landed in Paris, where he was an Iranian child. Next was Toronto, where he quickly became a regular Canadian teen at a French school where the 350 students came from 82 nations.
Eventually, Soleymanlou moved to Montreal, where his understanding of himself was complicated while studying at the National Theatre School of Canada and trying to figure out how he fit, or didn’t, into the idea of being Québécois.
In 2009, as the so-called Persian Spring was going on in the county where he is born, Soleymanlou was invited to create a show about his heritage – and to figure out what, if anything, was still Iranian about him.
At the end of Un, Soleymanlou discovers there is an “empty space” inside of him where a clear identity might otherwise lie – but, like the empty space described by the British director Peter Brook, it can be a site of creativity.
In the sequel Deux, performed next after a short intermission, Soleymanlou is joined onstage by Emmanuel Schwartz, one of Quebec’s finest (and funniest) stage actors, who was – at least according to a bio written for him – born to a Catholic francophone mother and Jewish anglophone father.
Un has been a success and toured much of the world at this point – but Soleymanlou is stuck on a jab from a smarmy French (de la France) director who told him that his show probably got so many bookings because Iran was “à la mode.”
For his follow-up, he has some ideas about how the inclusion of Schwartz can expand his exploration of identity: Maybe they could fight about Israel versus Iran? But Schwartz balks. He doesn’t feel he knows enough to have any strong feelings about Israel and it feels exploitative. He finds it much more fun to play Soleymanlou, instead. Maybe too much fun.
Trois is where this three-part show explodes with francophone diversity – and acrimony. This collective creation is new to this tour but is based on two previous shows called Trois that Soleymanlou created with Quebec and French (from France) performers.
The set-up is that each of the 35 pan-Canadian francophones (plus one bilingual non-binary anglophone) has four minutes at a microphone to answer the question, “Who am I?”
That falls apart quickly. One franco-Ontarian, appalled by the sudden demise of so many French-language programs at Laurentian University, rolls her eyes at the idea that French is in danger in Quebec. Another franco-Canadian calls out Quebec’s narrative on language as a “Trojan Horse” for policies that target minorities.
One older gentleman isn’t having this: These are just the talking points from that horribly biased newspaper The Globe and Mail, he says, a Trojan Horse itself for Quebec bashing. One actor of colour from Montreal says she has been identified as “Québécois” by Torontonians, while one Indigenous woman tells us she identifies with it enough to be a Quebec separatist.
The debate only gets hotter from there: Is Quebec society more racist than other parts of Canada, or just the same amount? This is when I started to notice the occasional audience member exit.
But Trois doesn’t just emulate divisive online discussion on stage – it also lampoons this type of discourse. The climax of this section of the show, for instance, involves a white man going on and on about how racist he is while assuming increasingly beatific expressions.
That’s Soleymanlou’s overall style: He never lets a point land without then questioning it or making fun of it. (There are plenty of jokes – and dance numbers – to keep things entertaining.)
One of the more stinging critiques within Un. Deux. Trois. – which, in defence of the leavers, definitely feels like it is four and a half hours long – is of theatre (and journalism) and the way identity becomes cultural capital with a value linked to how bad things are going in your homeland at any given moment.
At one point, Soleymanlou plays a voicemail left for him just recently by a Radio-Canada journalist asking whether he could come on her show to talk about the current protests in Iran.
The problem is, he hasn’t really paid much attention to what’s going on there for the past decade. He’s been too busy touring a series of plays that started with his search for his Iranian identity.
The idea that a quête d’identité is nothing more than a narcissistic journey is floated – but, like everything else, is also sunk in this occasionally frustrating, mostly fascinating piece of theatre.
Un. Deux. Trois runs to October 16 at Théâtre français de Toronto (with English surtitles). It then plays October 21 to 23 at Duceppe in Montreal; October 27 to 29 at Trident in Quebec City; November 2 to 3 at Théâtre populaire d’Acadie in Caraquet; November 5 and 6 at Théâtre de l’Escaouette in Moncton; November 11 to 12 at la Seizième in Vancouver; and November 17 to 20 novembre at Cercle Molière in Winnipeg.