Ti-Coq at Th éâtre Gesu

[Denis Salter]

Dear colleagues,

I recently acquired, through a stroke of luck, a rare eight-page program of what would seem to be a 1949 production of Gratien Gélinas's Ti-Coq at the Gesu Theatre in Montréal.  The program notes that the play opened in French in May 1948, and then re-opened in the autumn of that year at the Gesu, setting a Canadian record in running for 200 consecutive performances. The program is for a production in English, for as it somewhat cryptically notes: "The current occasion is the first in theatrical history that a bi-lingual cast appears [with one exception] in the identical play in a second language."  That cast includes not only Gélinas, who is twice called 'Fridolin' for he was so firmly identified with that role, but also Fred Barry as Papa Desilets and Denise Pelletier as Germaine. The production was co-directed by Gélinas and Barry. The second page contains the famous 'Karsh of Ottawa' black and white photograph of Gélinas, looking very dapper.  The olive green cover has a charming articulated image, as though made out of pieces of paper, of Ti-Coq, with the abstract image of a rooster in red forming his eyebrows, some of his hair, his nose, and his mouth, contained within the overall 'cut out' of the rest of his face, his neck, and his right hand which, conspicuously, is holding a cigarette.  I say "conspicuously" because the back page contains an advertisement asking "Did you notice? . . . ," and then adds, "Ti-Coq smokes Player's mild," with an image of a Player's package at the bottom.  I would be happy to send you a laser photocopy of the program (or a scanned image) if it might be relevant to your research or if you would like a copy for your collection of theatrical memorabilia. It is unusual, these days, to find Montréal theatrical memorabilia, pre-1950, with the exception, of course, of material in institutional collections like the Lande, the BNQ, and so on.

--Denis Salter.
____________________________________
"In 2005, the world . . . pass[ed] the trillion-dollar mark in the expenditure, annually, on arms. We're fighting for $50 billion annually for foreign aid for Africa: the military total outstrips human need by 20 to 1. Can someone please explain to me our contemporary balance of values?"--Stephen Lewis.  
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
"To celebrate this award, and the work it recognizes of those around the world, let me recall the words of Gandhi: 'My life is my message.' Also, plant a tree."  Wangari Maathai, winner of the 2004 Nobel Prize for Peace.

__________________________________________________
Denis Salter
Professor of Theatre
McGill University
853 Sherbrooke St. West
Montréal, QC
H3A 2T6
Tel (514) 487 7309
Regular Fax (514) 398 8146
Computer Fax (309) 294 0444
denis.salter at mcgill.ca
d.salter at videotron.ca
__________________
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://artsservices.uwaterloo.ca/pipermail/candrama/attachments/20060510/ad8789c0/attachment.html>