Marilou Leblanc is a Canadian writer and actress with a raw, gentle voice. Her work addresses queer, feminist and anti-grossophobic issues. Marilou is also sensitive, eternally nostalgic and deeply in love.
Residency project :
This is a playwriting residency based on a project entitled "MY ANGER, or something like that...".
"It all started when my shrink told me: "I'd like us to have access to your raw anger, Marilou. What's that? I'm not sure I understand? No, it's her who doesn't understand. I don't feel angry... I feel asleep. Or more like I'm dead? Yes, that's it. Like dead. I feel like I'm dying. At some point, yes, I will die. And so will you. Everyone dies. But it's like I feel it too often. That things come to an end. That I spend far too much of my time being nostalgic and the rest I'm afraid of. Afraid of naming, screaming and being in tabarnak1? Oh... There it is, my raw anger.
(...)
My anger and my feminism, or rather my angry feminism, are calling me. This anger is not only mine, but that of my mother, my grandmother and her mother before her. It's the anger of all those who have been shouting for too long, and of those who haven't given themselves the right to go to extremes for fear of hurting, disturbing or losing themselves.
(...)
In a way, I think that's where it all starts. It starts with the invisibility of diversity, minorities and women. It starts with the need I had to shout that I was a raging dyke when, at 13, I frenched my best friend on the bus platform at my local high school2. It starts with my mother, who screams at me that she's not a good mother, and hers, who does nothing but cry because she doesn't know any other way of being a woman. It comes from my hypersensitivity, which is afraid of my anger like the plague, afraid that it will split me in two like a watermelon opened in the middle of a summer heatwave. It starts with my overflow, not knowing what to do with it, being afraid of it. Fear of my anger as great as the love I possess, because the two are intertwined, whether I like it or not. Not far from my unconditional love is my unconditional anger, which takes on the anger of others along with my own. I am the snowball effect. Your fight becomes mine. Speak up and I'll be right behind you, repeating your slogan."