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    Balconville
    Balconville
    Balconville
    Ebook184 pages1 hour

    Balconville

    By David Fennario

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Balconville is Canada's first bilingual play. Three families and Thibault, the neighbourhood rubbie, sit on their balconies in the heat of a Montreal summer. It is election time and Gaétan Bolduc is running for re-election for the Liberals. His broadcast truck roams the streets making election promises in English and in French, and playing the music of Elvis Presley. The English and the French-Canadian working class take on the Establishment in this award-winning play.

    Cast of 3 women and 6 men.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTalonbooks
    Release dateDec 4, 2015
    ISBN9780889229969
    Balconville
    Author

    David Fennario

    Anglophone playwright born David Wiper in Montreal, Quebec, 1947. He was raised in the working class district of Pointe-St-Charles, an area he would make the centre of most of his plays. He was one of six children, his father was a housepainter. His pen name, given to him by a girlfriend, was part of a Bob Dylan song, “Pretty Peggy-O.” David Fennario has described his life as: Born on the Avenues in the Verdun-Pointe Saint Charles working-class district of Montreal; one of six kids growing up in Duplessis’ Quebec, repressed, depressed, oppressed and compressed. “School was a drag. My working experience turned me into a raving Red calling for world revolution. The process of becoming a political activist gave me the confidence to be a writer. Up to then, I thought only middle-class people could become artists, because they were not stupid like working-class people, who were working-class because they were stupid. But reading Socialist literature convinced me that working-class people can change themselves and the world around them. We are not chained to fate, Freud, God, gender or a genetic code. We can make ourselves into what we want. I’ve been trying my best to do that ever since, and have had some success as a playwright and a prose writer.”

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      Book preview

      Balconville - David Fennario

      cover.jpgtitlepage.jpg

      Balconville was first performed at the Centaur Theatre in Montreal on January 2, 1979, with the following cast:

      CLAUDE PAQUETTE Marc Gélinas

      CÉCILE PAQUETTE Cécile St-Denis

      DIANE PAQUETTE Manon Bourgeois

      MURIEL WILLIAMS Terry Tweed

      TOM WILLIAMS Robert Parson

      JOHNNY REGAN Peter MacNeill

      IRENE REGAN Lynn Deragon

      THIBAULT Jean Archambault

      GAËTAN BOLDUC Gilles Tordjman

      Directed by Guy Sprung

      Set and Costume Design by Barbra Matis

      Lighting Design by Steven Hawkins

      Sound Design by Peter Smith

      Stage Managed by Erika Klusch

      CHARACTERS

      CLAUDE PAQUETTE

      CÉCILE PAQUETTE, his wife

      DIANE PAQUETTE, their daughter

      MURIEL WILLIAMS

      TOM WILLIAMS, her son

      JOHNNY REGAN

      IRENE REGAN, his wife

      THIBAULT

      GAËTAN BOLDUC, a politician

      SET

      The back of a tenement in the Pointe-Saint-Charles district of Montreal. We see a flight of stairs leading up to two balconies set side by side, one belonging to the Regans and the other, to the Paquettes. The balcony belonging to the Paquettes is directly below the ground-floor balcony of the Williams.

      ACT ONE

      SCENE 1

      It is night. TOM is sitting on his back balcony trying to play Mona on his guitar. The sound of a car screeching around a corner is heard. The car beeps its horn. DIANE enters.

      VOICE

      Diane, Diane …

      DIANE

      J’savais que t’avais une autre blonde.

      VOICE

      Mais non, Diane, c’était ma soeur.

      DIANE

      Oui, ta soeur. Mange d’la merde. Fuck you!

      CÉCILE comes out of her house and stands on her balcony.

      CÉCILE

      C’est-tu, Jean-Guy? Diane?

      DIANE

      Oh, achale-moi pas.

      The car screeches away.

      MURIEL

      (from the screen door behind TOM) Goddamn teenagers, they don’t stop until they kill someone. Tommy, what are you doing there?

      The sound of the car screeching is heard on the other side of the stage.

      VOICE

      Hey, Diane. Diane …

      DIANE

      Maudit crisse, va-t’en, hostie.

      CÉCILE

      Diane, c’est Jean-Guy.

      VOICE

      Hey, Diane. Viens-t’en faire un tour avec moi. Diane?

      The car beeps its horn.

      DIANE

      Jamais, jamais. J’t’haïs, j’t’haïs.

      VOICE

      Hey, Diane.

      The car beeps its horn again.

      PAQUETTE

      (from inside his house) Qu’est-ce qu’y a? Qu’est-ce tu veux, hostie?

      VOICE

      Diane, viens ici.

      PAQUETTE

      (yelling from the upstairs window) Si tu t’en vas pas, j’appelle la police.

      MURIEL comes out of her house, goes down the lane, and yells after the car.

      MURIEL

      Get the hell out of here, you goddamn little creep!

      The car screeches away. MURIEL returns to her house.

      MURIEL

      Tom, you gotta get up tomorrow.

      TOM

      Yeah, yeah.

      MURIEL goes into her house.

      PAQUETTE

      Maudit crisse, j’te dis que t’en as des amis toi. C’est la dernière fois que je te préviens. Cécile, viens-tu t’coucher?

      CÉCILE

      Oui, oui, Claude, j’arrive. Diane, Jean-Guy devrait pas venir si tard.

      DIANE

      Ah, parle-moi pu d’lui.

      CÉCILE

      Son char fait bien trop de train, y devrait faire réparer son muffler.

      CÉCILE goes into her house with DIANE. JOHNNY enters. He is drunk and singing Heartbreak Hotel. He finds that the door to his house is locked.

      JOHNNY

      Hey, Irene … Irene, open the fuckin’ door.

      IRENE opens the door.

      PAQUETTE

      (from inside his house) Hey! Ferme ta gueule, toi-là.

      JOHNNY

      Fuck you!

      He goes into his house and slams the door shut.

      Blackout.

      Scene 2

      The next day. It is morning. THIBAULT enters wheeling his Chez Momo’s delivery bike down the lane. TOM comes out of the house with toast, coffee, cigarettes, and his guitar. When he is finished his toast and coffee, he begins to practise his guitar.

      MURIEL

      (from inside her house) Tom, you left the goddamn toaster on again.

      TOM

      Yeah?

      MURIEL

      Yeah well, I’m the one who pays the electric bills.

      THIBAULT

      (looking at the tire on his delivery bike) Câlice, how did that happen? The tire, c’est fini.

      TOM

      A flat.

      THIBAULT

      Eh?

      TOM

      A flat tire.

      THIBAULT

      Ben oui, un flat tire. The other one, she’s okay … That’s funny, eh? Very funny, that.

      TOM

      Don’t worry, Thibault, it’s only flat on the bottom.

      THIBAULT

      You think so? Well, I got to phone the boss.

      He goes up the stairs and steps over the broken step.

      TOM

      Hey, watch the step!

      THIBAULT

      (knocking on PAQUETTE’s door) Paquette, Paquette …

      PAQUETTE

      (from inside his house) Tabarnac, c’est quoi?

      THIBAULT

      C’est moi, Paquette. J’ai un flat tire.

      PAQUETTE

      Cécile, la porte …

      CÉCILE

      (from inside the house) Oui, oui … Une minute …

      THIBAULT

      C’est moi, Paquette.

      CÉCILE

      (at the screen door) Allô, Thibault. Comment ça va?

      THIBAULT

      J’ai un flat tire sur mon bicycle.

      CÉCILE

      Oh, un flat tire.

      PAQUETTE

      Que c’est qu’y a?

      CÉCILE

      C’est Thibault, Claude.

      PAQUETTE

      Thibault? Thibault?

      THIBAULT

      Oui. Bonjour.

      PAQUETTE

      Es-tu tombé sur la tête, tabarnac? Il est sept heures et demie du matin, hostie de ciboire.

      CÉCILE

      Claude a travaillé tard hier soir.

      THIBAULT

      That’s not so good, eh?

      PAQUETTE

      Que c’est qu’y veut?

      CÉCILE

      Y veux savoir c’que tu veux.

      THIBAULT

      (yelling at PAQUETTE through the window) J’ai un flat tire. Je voudrais téléphoner à mon boss.

      PAQUETTE

      Cris pas si fort, j’suis pas sourd. Cécile, dis-lui rentrer.

      JOHNNY

      (from inside his house) What the fuck’s going on?

      THIBAULT

      C’est-tu, okay?

      CÉCILE

      Oui, oui. Entre.

      THIBAULT goes into PAQUETTE’s house. JOHNNY comes out on his balcony.

      JOHNNY

      What’s going on?

      TOM

      (from below) Thibault’s got a flat tire.

      JOHNNY

      Flat tire? Big fuckin’ production!

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