Once Upon a Time in the East
We're celebrating 75 years of the Théâtre du Rideau Vert, the oldest professional French-language theater still operating in Quebec. Each film in this cycle is based on a play that played at the Rideau Vert and marked a key moment in its history. The Children's Hour is adapted from Lilian Hellman's Innocentes, the first play presented on its stages; James Goldman's The Lion in Winter was performed under the artistic direction of Yvette Brind'Amour, co-founder of the theater; Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman and Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe's My Fair Lady were staged during the time of current Artistic Director Denise Filiatrault, who also starred in André Brassard's Il était une fois dans l'Est, co-written by playwright and author of Les Belles sœurs, Michel Tremblay.
Both Tremblay of the working-class milieu and Tremblay of the gay and transvestite milieu are featured in this film. A number of well-known characters from his plays are featured.
André Brassard
André Brassard is a Quebec director and producer. From 1968 to 2003, he created the majority of Michel Tremblay's plays. With close to 160 productions, including several premieres, in over 40 years, he is considered one of Quebec's greatest directors. Also attracted to the cinema, André Brassard brought to the screen three scripts by Michel Tremblay. The first, Françoise Durocher, waitress, is a short film of about twenty minutes that he directed in 1972. The second, Il était une fois dans l'Est, combines the action of the plays Hosanna and Les Belles-Sœurs. The film was presented in competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 1974. The last one, Le soleil se lève en retard, is an original script. The film was released in 1977.
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