Director Nini Bélanger created three works inspired by the novel House of the Sleeping Beauties by Yasunari Kawabata. In this, the first cycle of works presented by Projet MÛ, Bélanger reflects on eroticism and death by retelling the dark yet moving story of an old man who visits a brothel where the young prostitutes are fast asleep.

The Sleeping Beauties

The first phase of the sleepy cycle, a close adaptation of Kawabata’s novel, was presented as Nini Bélanger’s final project at the National Theatre School of Canada. It was performed by Robert Lalonde, Marie Michaud and Catherine-Amélie Côté.

Exhibition-performance

In its second iteration, the director explored the same theme from a completely different angle, this time as a photo exhibition that served as the set for a performance featuring non-actors. This second phase of the cycle was presented in 2008 at Espace Libre as part of the OFFTA.

Endormi(e)

Pushing the idea of hyperrealism further than ever before, Bélanger opted to present the third and final phase of the cycle in an unconventional venue, i.e. a house in Montreal’s Hochelaga-Maisonneuve neighbourhood. This iteration demanded a contemporary adaptation of the novel transposed to a North American context. The show was remounted the following year at Théâtre La Chapelle. This final version, darker and more elaborate, underscores the loneliness of the character who awaits death in the company of a young sleeping girl. The production won the Carte Premiere prize for best stage direction.

Stories have the bad habit of starting long before we arrive on the scene. This is what happens to Amaryllis, who must free her dead sister’s soul trapped in the Ribbon Tree. Thus starts an epic journey that will lead the little girl to the Valley of Shadows, under the watchful eye of a mysterious narrator.

Tackling the themes of resilience and mourning head on, this delightful production is in fact a comedy. The audience can’t help but be drawn in by the heroine’s fantastic adventures and won over by her ferocious desire to live fully as she seeks to free herself from suffering.

The English translation of Vipérine by Alexis Diamond was initially developed at the 2011 Playwrights’ Workshop Montréal Translation Unit. The translation was further developed with the support of the 2016 Glassco Translation Residency in Tadoussac through Playwrights’ Workshop Montréal and Toronto’s Theatre Direct, with funding from the Canada Council for the Arts.

Published by Playwrights Canada Press

Vipérine was first produced in 2012 at the Festival Les coups de théâtre.

Playwright Pascal Brullemans and stage director Nini Bélanger are also a real-life couple. In January 2001, they lived through the death of their second child. In Beauté, chaleur et mort, they relive the sequence of events that is their private tragedy so as to dissect their state of post-traumatic stress. What can be done, how does one act in the minutes, hours, days that follow this unimaginable loss? What is there to say, how does one go on when the world stops? And how can all of this be shown on stage ten years later? A visceral ode to resilience, this production – at once story, first-hand account and autopsy – explores the grey areas between reality and representation.

Beauté, chaleur et mort was produced at Théâtre La Chapelle in 2011.

This performance was inspired by a real place: Plaza Côte-des-Neiges, a shopping centre which has become a gathering place for communities residing in Montreal’s most multicultural borough. Emblematic of immigrant life, this spot raises questions about the social integration of new arrivals. What drives communities to gather in a shopping centre rather than in a cultural space? What does this reveal about the host society? PLAZA brings together actors and non-actors in a real place. The performance challenges audience members to be more than mere spectators, placing them in a situation where they have to distinguish true from false as they themselves are observed by the Plaza’s regular customers.

Turning the viewer/spectator/consumer into a viewer/spectator/citizen while bringing together artists, local residents and the FTA public, in PLAZA, Nini Bélanger confronts Montreal’s “us” while pushing the limits of her hyperreal approach.

PLAZA was created in 2015, as part of the Festival TransAmériques (FTA).

At the dawn of digital civilization, a young man commits a sensational murder broadcast online. Why stage such an unspeakable act if not to satisfy a compulsive need to be seen?

In a world where the boundaries between reality and fiction are blurred, three lonely voices tell a story that marks the very first murder ever livestreamed.

An examination of how issues around identity have been altered by digital civilization, the Homicide project invites viewers to toggle back and forth between the labyrinthine deep Web and acts of sacred commemoration, between inhumanity and compassion.

Homicide is at once an invitation to question the mechanism underpinning the systems that feed our basest instincts and a stark portrait of a sick society.

“But my splendid youth! Is there anything more beautiful in this world? What human material! With them, I will be able to build a new world.” – Adolf Hitler

Drawing from content shared on social media, Splendide Jeunesse is a visual object that defies classification and questions the limits of acquiescence. This collection of funny yet disturbing tableaux is presented in a deliberately random way to mimic the online browsing experience, giving viewers the freedom to make their own connections.

This form of delivery allows the project to shed light on the glimmers of humanity hidden in the digital universe while also speaking to the difficulty of living in an open-access world, where everything is available, from the deafening violence to the beauty that keeps hope alive.

Anything can happen in this intriguing bedroom where children are invited to listen carefully as the fabulous characters of this bewitching tale come to life right in front of them, as a lone actress embodies the many characters. Her voice, magically transformed by sound effects, guides us to the depths the forest to witness the ultimate face-off between Little Witch and the Ogre.

Little Witch is a show that plays with fairy-tale conventions to tell a story about resilience and courage that will make you shake with laughter and tremble with fear.

This version of the play, presented to small audiences, is as an auditory fable performed by a virtuosic actress giving voice to all the characters.

Petite Sorcière was first produced by Projet MÛ at Théâtre Aux Écuries, Montréal, in November 20I7.

Little Witch, the English translation of Petite Sorcière, was developed with the support of the 2017 Banff Playwrights Lab, and commissioned by Geordie Theatre, with further development by Projet MÛ.

Little Witch is published by Playwrights Canada Press.