Play: Another Home Invasion || Playwright: Joan MacLeod Shoot: South Dakota || Model: Adella Bohlander
That’s it. That’s the story.
No it isn’t. Not quite.
The front door — the back door too — they weren’t locked that night. What if I left those doors unlocked on purpose? What if I brought this all on because I didn’t care no more what happened to Alec and me?
Maybe I wanted the fellow to come.
Another Home Invasion premiered in February 2009 at the Enbridge Playrights Festival at Alberta Theatre Projects in Calgary.
On November 23rd 2014, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois went on the popular Québec television show Tout le monde en parle and announced he was donating the $25,000 cash prize from for his Governor General’s Literary Award for Tenir tête to a coalition of citizens groups fighting the TransCanada Energy East pipeline, challenging others to do then same. The campaign has raised over $400,000 thus far. Below is his acceptance speech for his memoirs documenting the Québec student movement.
The following was delivered originally in French and can be found immediately below the English translation.
My first thank you, of course, goes to those whose story is told in this book, that is to say, the students of Québec. Less than three years ago, they were victims of contempt and of police and media brutality intolerable in a democratic society. Still today there are too many that are paying the price for their political commitment, gripped by debts or legal action.
I equally want to thank my editor, Mark Fortier, who was my guide throughout this literary adventure. I also want to thank my parents, who imparted to me the values of justice and freedom that are at the heart of Tenir tête.
Over the past few days, I have had the opportunity to explain in detail what I have decided to do with the award given to me tonight. I do not feel the need to explain it once again to you here, nor do I feel the need to repeat my convictions. Instead, I simply want to tell you why I am here tonight.
“Ignorance is easy contempt,” sang Félix Leclerc. We live in an era where culture and thought are more often disparaged than encouraged, an era where power suspects intellectuals rather than consults them. The Stephen Harper government represents the zenith of this contempt. Cuts to cultural organizations, censorship of the systematic dismantling of the public broadcaster: the conservative revolt against cultural institutions represents a frontal assault on democracy itself, which can only be based on the sharing of knowledge.
The award that I am receiving tonight is conferred on me by a public institution, and reminds us all of society’s commitment to culture and thought. The fight I undertook in 2012, which inspired my essay Tenir tête, was also based on this conviction.
Pierre Bourgault said, “Right without duty is a mistake, but privilege without responsibility is a crime”. I accept this award with humility, acknowledging the responsibility that falls upon me. Tonight I pledge to do all within my power to be worthy of it.
Between the Lines is publishing the English Translation, In Defiance in April 2015.
Bonsoir,
Mes premiers remerciements vont, évidemment, à ceux et celles dont le livre raconte l’histoire, c’est-à-dire les étudiants du Québec. Il y a moins de trois ans, ils ont été victime d’un mépris et d’une brutalité médiatique et policière inadmissible dans une société démocratique. Encore aujourd’hui, ils sont trop nombreux à faire les frais de leur engagement politique, pris à la gorge par les dettes ou les démarches juridiques.
Je veut également remercier mon éditeur, Mark Fortier, mon guide tout au long de cette aventure livresque. Mes parents, également, qui m’ont transmis les valeurs de justice et de liberté qui sont au cœur de Tenir tête.
Au courant des derniers jours, j’ai eu l’occasion d’expliquer en détail ce que j’ai décidé de faire avec le prix qui m’est décerné ce soir. Devant vous, je ne ressent donc pas le besoin de le faire à nouveau, ni de refaire l’exposé de mes convictions. J’ai plutôt envie de vous dire, tout simplement, pourquoi je suis ici ce soir.
« L’ignorance a le mépris facile » chantait Félix Leclerc. Nous vivons à une époque où la culture et la pensée sont plus souvent dénigrés qu’encouragés, une époque où le pouvoir se méfie des intellectuels plutôt qu’il ne les consultent . Le gouvernement de Stephen Harper représente l’apogée de ce mépris. Coupures dans les organismes culturels, censure des scientifiques démantèlement du diffuseur public : la fronde conservatrice contre les institutions culturelles représente une attaque frontale contre la démocratie elle-même, qui ne peut reposer que sur le partage du savoir.
Le prix que je reçoit ce soir m’est attribué par une institution publique, et il rappelle l’attachement de la société à la culture et à la pensée. La lutte que j’ai mené en 2012, celle qui a inspiré mon essai Tenir tête, reposait également sur cette conviction.
« Le droit sans le devoir est une faute, mais privilège sans la responsabilité est un crime », disait Pierre Bourgault. J’accepte ce prix avec humilité, en prenant acte de la responsabilité qui m’échoit. Je m’engage ce soir à faire tout en mon pouvoir pour être à la hauteur de celle-ci.
Your excellencies, fellow laureates, my agent Jackie Kaiser, my publisher and editor Iris Tulphome, and especially my partner Dr. Helen Hoy. This is truly extraordinary. The Governor General’s award for Fiction. Even now it’s difficult to believe.
I am a storyteller. And in that capacity, I like to imagine that I’ve been a strong advocate for Aboriginal rights and a minor voice in the struggle for planetary sanity. Certainly these are themes that run through my work, passions that fire my life. This probably makes me sound somewhat political.
And I suppose I am.
Politics, after all, has never been the sole domain of politicians any more than the telling of stories has been the exclusive landscape of artists.
All art is political, and, in a world that has tilted towards the unconscionable concept of profit at any price, we need be reminded that human beings, along with all living creatures, have a shared right to the air we breathe and the water we drink, that we have an enduring interest in the generosity of the societies we create, that we have a continuing obligation to extend compassion one to another.
When future generations tell their stories about us, our legacy will not be the wealth we accumulated nor the technologies we developed to comfort and amuse one another.
Our legacy will be our example. How we comported ourselves in our communities. How we conducted ourselves in the world.
So, as we live our lives, we might wish to ask ourselves the question . . . will this be a story we want our children to hear?
Excerpt from The Back of the Turtle
Nicholas Crisp came by the next morning.
“If ye must have a chair, a rocker is what’s required,” he said, as he dropped the tailgate of his pickup. “Like riding an ocean swell or resting safe in your mother’s arms.”
“You made this?”
“We used to sit on the ground,” said Crisp. “And we used to walk on all fours.
“This is a nice chair.”
“And for all the good truth will do us, we were happier then.” Crisp walked to the edge of the deck. “Have ye a name somewhere about your person?
Gabriel nodded. “Several.”
“A name for every occasion,” said Crisp. “The Indians do such a thing, I’m told. Collect names as they’re earned or as they appear. In that, I’m a poor man with but one name to drag about.”
“Nicholas is a fine name.”
“It covers a territory, it does. St. Nick. Old Nick. Christmas and Hell. And all the bleeding nicks of life in between.”
“Gabriel. Mostly, I’m called Gabriel.”
“Gabriel!” Crisp’s voice rushed through the trees like a truck in a tunnel. “Now there’s thunder and storm. The best-loved of the four angels. The one chosen to announce the birth of John the Baptist and to reveal the Qu’ran to Muhammad. It’s Gabriel what tells Mary about the road ahead.”
Nicholas shook his head with delight.
“Dante made Gabriel the chief of the angelic guards placed at the entrance to paradise. Did ye know that? And if the creative arts are your butter and jam, there’s a movie called Constantine what has a Gabriel who betrays heaven and joins forces with the Dark Lord.”
Crisp’s eyes flashed in the fading light and his lips curled away from yellowing teeth.
“And now, at the meridian of the world, on this seal-piss and foggy-dog of a day, here stands another Gabriel, rigged for battle and havoc. It surely takes my breath away.”
“I’m not that Gabriel.”
“Yet here ye are,” said Nicholas, grabbing Gabriel firmly by the shoulders, “here ye are.”
Your Excellencies, fellow laureates, and dear guests
When I was 13 I wrote my first play: a somewhat melodramatic rip-off of On Golden Pond. I asked my mother if I could borrow some money to rent a theatre here in Ottawa to stage it. I will never forget how she calmly wrote the cheque and handed it over to me, possessed by some immense and, as of then, totally unproven faith in her son.
Now, we are not a wealthy family. Not even close. Where she found the money, I will never know. No doubt it came at the expense of several much-needed home repairs, and perhaps a new pair of boots and winter coat for herself. Nor will I forget how she drove my set down to the theatre on the same morning she was to brief the Minister of Justice on a bill before Parliament. On a rainy spring morning, in her pantsuit and high heels, she and I lugged the flats and risers out of the trunk, up two flights of stairs, and onto the stage.
She never pushed me into this vocation. But when I showed an interest, she nurtured it selflessly. Throughout the years, as I wrote and staged more plays, she was always my harshest critic. And the perseverance over political tyranny and prejudice present in these plays is undoubtedly an inheritance from her.
So I would like to dedicate this award to my mother. And to all of the hardworking mothers who sacrifice for their children everyday, the world over.
Thank you
From Peter Fechter:
In darkness, Peter speaks onstage.
PETER
My mother always told me: never fall asleep with an unanswered question, lest it haunt your dreams.
Sound of a gunshot. It echoes between nearby buildings, birds launch into flight from the adjacent apartment, blood courses through a body. Laboured breathing. A tone, like the sound of a concussion. The digital clock begins to count down from 59:00.
Lights appear on Peter Fechter, a youth of eighteen.
PETER
It sounded like thunder. Like a storm breaking above our heads. And then all of a sudden my mouth was full of dirt.
I’ve been shot. No. Yes I’ve been shot. Is there pain? Yes. My stomach. Get up. Do it. Move something. Blink. Yes. I can blink. Breathing. Throat. Can I swallow? No. Hurts to swallow. Right leg. Can I move it? No? Okay. Left leg? No. My weight is on my left leg. Right hand. Yes. Two fingers. I can move two fingers. Now the wrist. I can move the wrist.
One minute and fifteen seconds I think: get up goddamn-it. Don’t lay there like a gutted fish, steaming guts on the rock, jump for the ledge! All you had to do was pull yourself over. But I reached up and his hand wasn’t there. Why did I expect it? So stupid: I was waiting for his hand. I replay the moment over in my head:
We’re standing at the window.
HELMUT
Are you ready?
PETER
Two stories above the barbwire fence.
HELMUT
One… two… three!
PETER
We jump.
The sound of both boys jumping from the apartment window into the Death Strip.
PETER
…and land on the other side.
The sound of them running. A siren. Shouting of Checkpoint Charlie guards. The sound of Peterʼs heavy breathing and pounding heart as he runs; feet on gravel.
HELMUT
This way, this way!
PETER
The other side seems so far. Much further than it looked from the window. Every alarm along the wall, in my body begins to howl, the gravel turns to oatmeal under my feet, run faster goddamn-it, faster! Helmet reaches the other side first. I watch him jump for the top but he misses. He can’t reach it. He jumps again and I grab his legs and push him all the way up. And then I reach for his hand. But he’s already gone over. He didn’t reach down. (The distant sound of the gunshot and its echo) The gunshot echoes across the Death Strip, between buildings, inside apartments, inside every skull for a dozen square blocks, even those of birds in mid-flight and they have very tiny skulls.
Goddamn it I should have had a cleaner landing, I should have dodged more, jumped faster, jumped harder. Jump from the knees, that’s what they said in gym class, not that I ever listened. Mr. Hoffman always said it would get the best of me. I thought he meant cholesterol.
Three minutes and forty seconds- I think ‘What was worth this?’ It seemed clear a moment ago, in the window…
The thing you have to understand is that Helmet had a plan. And time was running out. Every fiber in my body was telling me to go with him, jump, go now until there was nothing to do but jump. Everything was happening so fast I didn’t have time to think.
But now I’m too tired. I want to close my eyes but no, ‘never fall asleep with an unanswered question’. My face in the dirt, whispering: ‘what was worth this?’ I can feel the answer lying in the centre of the hole, the red hot, the part that bleeds, that hurts too much to ahhhhhhhh- need to go to the centre. I take a breath. A long breath. As slow as I can. My mother would say: ‘If you cannot find the answer, then perhaps you are not listening close enough.’ So. I stop moving. I keep very still.
And listen.
I can feel my body melting. Like a rotten piece of fruit. I’m slowing down. Slowing to a stop. To the speed of the earth. I try to listen for an answer. I listen as close as I can.
And then… quiet at first…
A thousand ants scuttling in the canals of earth below my ear. If I listen close enough I can hear them. An impossible labyrinth of bodies, all moving as part of an intricate system, a master plan. And the roots of a dandelion four feet away slowly descending, searching for moisture. A fly passes overhead, each isolated beat of its wings like a helicopter. A bead of sweat slips from my brow, falls silent through the air, and explodes on the gravel like a bomb.
Sound of a heartbeat.
And my heart. Like a drum. Slowly losing it’s rhythm. Pounding blood up my throat. The taste of rusty nails. Of dirt.
It is admittedly odd for someone who wishes to see Canada evolve from a Constitutional Monarchy to a Republic in his lifetime to put together an edition of speeches from The Governor General’s Literary Awards.
I pursued this because it seemed important in the spirit of what SpiderWebShow has attempted to do since its inception – to amplify and connect artistic voices across Canada. Each year, Canadian writers in both official languages from across Canada gather to accept awards for excellence. Each winner crafts a short acceptance speech. In some ways, it is The Oscars of #CdnCult. Despite the fact these texts have been honed and struggled over by some of our greatest writers, these words are rarely communicated outside of the first time they are spoken to a room in Ottawa.
This edition contains speeches by three writers who continue to inspire. More than just digitized historical documents, these words are insights into the ideas and passions that inform some of our most talented writers.
