Straight Jacket Winter • La Seizième

Hoping to start a new life on the West Coast, a couple travels 5000 km from Montreal to Vancouver in the dead of winter. As they attempt to integrate their adopted city, Esther and Gilles find themselves quickly confronted with the language barrier, and their inability to create a social network. Bit by bit, they retreat, inwardly, shielding themselves from the rain and the outside world, the four walls of their apartment becoming the boundaries of a universe understandable only to them. But for how long can two people who love each other live so marginally?

Using a series of tableaux where the real, the fictitious, everyday objects and literary materials collide, Straight Jacket Winter draws us in, delicately, uncovering the heart of two interior lives.

Press

“Straight Jacket Winter is incredibly successful in its pacing, its playful use of stage elements and its ability to evoke feelings about Vancouver that anyone who’s lived through a rainy season will know all too well.” — DailyHive Vancouver

“I wish everyone could make art this compelling from the tough seasons in their lives. Straight Jacket Winter transforms its deeply personal source material into joyously transcendent theatre.” — The Georgia Straight

“Straight Jacket Winter (...) explores form in a huge way and, while doing so, charms the heck out of us. The tableau that brings the curtain down keeps the audience clustered around the stage in almost childlike wonder. It feels a little like Christmas.” — Vancouver Courier

On tour

May 27– 29, 2016
Carrefour international de théâtre, Québec (QC)

November 10 – 12, 2016
Théâtre du Nouvel Ontario, Sudbury (ON)

November 16– 19, 2016
Centre national des Arts, Ottawa (ON)

December 11– 16, 2017
Théâtre la Licorne, Montréal (QC)

January 23, 2018
Théâtre populaire d’Acadie, Caraquet (NB)

January 25, 2018
Théâtre L’Escaouette, Moncton (NB)

January 10 – 26, 2019
Cercle Molière, Winnipeg (MT)

June 1 – 9, 2019
Magnetic North Festival, Vancouver (BC)

Awards and nominations

JESSIES

Nominations (Category: Large Theatre)

Outstanding Production : Théâtre la Seizième
Outstanding Direction : Esther Duquette & Gilles Poulin-Denis
Outstanding Original Script : Esther Duquette & Gilles Poulin-Denis
Critics Choice Innovation : Esther Duquette & Gilles Poulin-Denis

Credits

Coproduction 2PAR4, Théâtre français du Centre national des Arts & Théâtre la Seizième
Text and Drection Esther Duquette, Gilles Poulin-Denis
Assistant Direction Édith Patenaude
Cast Esther Duquette, Frédéric Lemay, Gilles Poulin-Denis, Julie Trépanier
Production team Antoine Berthiaume, Itai Erdal, Drew Facey, Kitty Hoffman, Jacques Poulin-Denis, Antoine Quirion Couture, Julie Vallée-Léger, Julien Véronneau
Dramaturgic adivisor Philippe Ducros
Artistic advisor Craig Holzschuh

Box Office