After a dazzling success at the Rideau Vert, the Collective arrives at the NAC

September 17, 2024 – OTTAWA (Canada) – Next week, the 2024 Collective’s Faire le bien will be showing at the National Arts Centre’s French Theatre. 

Showered with praise following its creation in Montreal, the show is the result of a collaboration between director Claude Poissant and authors François Archambault and Gabrielle Chapdelaine. Together, they have prepared some twenty sketches in which, with twisted morality and awkward dialogue, poke fun at our mechanisms of toxic positivity and other seemingly benevolent gestures.

“This project takes seizes on our reflections to punctuate our exchanges, to find dissimilarities and resemblances between our clear certainties and these sudden doubts which grip us, attempting to illuminate a little of what remains elusive in humans.”

– Claude Poissant, Director of Faire le bien

The Collective is an initiative of Mani Soleymanlou, who, following a troubling discussion with theatre graduates, wanted to “dream of the future”:

“‘No horizon’, they made me understand. This ‘impossibility of dreaming’, ‘of projecting oneself’, moved me. So, I thought: let’s go ahead, let’s offer them a horizon, a base. Let’s take a risk and offer this generation a breath of fresh air, a possibility, a first rendez-vous, hoping that their path will be full of possibilities.”

– Mani Soleymanlou, Artistic Director, NAC French Theatre and initiator of the Collective

This rendez-vous is driven by the talent and enthusiasm of eight young performers from six different theatre schools: Xavier Bergeron and Léa Roy (Conservatoire d’art dramatique de Montréal); Anaelle Boily Talbot (École de théâtre professionnel du Collège Lionel-Groulx); Mehdi Boumalki (École supérieure de théâtre de l’UQAM); Simon Champagne (École de théâtre du Cégep de Saint-Hyacinthe), Christophe Levac and Elizabeth Mageren (École nationale de théâtre du Canada); Charlotte Richer (Conservatoire du Département de théâtre de l’Université d’Ottawa). Together, they work alongside renowned actress, Eve Landry.

In Faire le bien, “empathy, kindness and benevolence can sometimes be disguised as a mission, slowly allowing the formula, the discomforts to emerge,” Director Claude Poissant insists.

As entertaining as it is hilarious, the show is, first and foremost, a great and essential cry for love addressed to the world of today and tomorrow.

MANI REÇOIT CLAUDE POISSANT

On Thursday, September 26, the opening night of Faire le bien, Mani Soleymanlou will be joined by director Claude Poissant as part of the Grandes rencontres du Théâtre français discussion series. The conversation will begin at 6:15 pm in the NAC Salon.

PODCAST “PLUS QUE DU THÉÂTRE”

Julien Morissette spoke with Claude Poissant about Faire le bien; the director's words are interspersed with those of the nine performers. Available in French, the podcast can be accessed here: https://nac-cna.ca/en/podcasts/episode/claude-poissant-et-le-collectif-2024

PERFORMANCE AND TICKET INFORMATION

Babs Asper Theatre

Thursday September 26 and Friday September 27 at 7:30 pm, and Saturday September 28 at 3 pm

Duration: 1 hour and 50 minutes without intermission

Tickets from $31

To purchases tickets, visit https://nac-cna.ca/en/event/35974 or call 1-844-985-2787 (ARTS). To find out what you need to know before accessing the building and facilities, click: https://nac-cna.ca/en/visit

Visit the NAC website to learn more about the 2024-2025 NAC French Theatre season.

THANK YOU TO OUR PARTNER

The National Arts Centre Foundation would like to thank Official Hotel Partner Ottawa Embassy Hotel & Suites.

ABOUT THE NAC  

The National Arts Centre is Canada’s bilingual, multi-disciplinary home for the performing arts. The NAC presents, creates, produces, and co-produces performing arts programming in various streams — the NAC Orchestra, Dance, English Theatre, French Theatre, Indigenous Theatre, and Popular Music and Variety — and nurtures the next generation of audiences and artists from across Canada. The NAC is located in the National Capital Region on the unceded territory of the Anishinabe Algonquin Nation.

-30-

FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:

Sylvain Lavoie

Communications Strategist, French Theatre

National Arts Centre

343-588-0743

sylvain.lavoie@nac-cna.ca