The Madonna Painter, or The Birth of A Painting

English-Language Premiere
Texte de Michel Marc Bouchard
Traduction de Linda Gaboriau
Mise en scène de Roy Surette
Avec Graham Cuthbertson, Lucinda Davis, Alessandro Juliani, Jean Leclerc, Holly O'Brien, Meg Roe, Amelia Sargisson

In 1918 a handsome young priest settles in a village in Lac Saint-Jean. Determined to inspire the faith he believes will protect the town from the onset of the Spanish flu, he commissions a visiting Italian painter by the name of Alessandro to create a fresco depicting the Blessed Virgin. With the financial backing of a misanthropic doctor, he sets out to recruit a model from among the village women, all of whom are deeply fixed in their own medieval-like mythologies and martyr and saint roles. Just when the perfect model has been picked the plan takes a turn for the worst. Set against a rich imagistic backdrop of iconography, sex and blood, this dark and humorous fable explores the collision of ecstasies, secrets and lies in the face of an impending epidemic.