"Marguerite : le feu" by Émilie Monnet, extracts

Émilie Monnet discovers Marguerite Duplessis. They may live two centuries apart, but this encounter on the Island of Montreal will take her on twin journeys: a physical one to Martinique and an intellectual one throughout the world. For Émilie Monnet, it’s about thawing the glaciers that constrain history and fan the fires of solidarity. How can one reinvent a memory revolving around that native heroine, the first enslaved person to demand rights from the Quebec court? The author, actor, director and activist of Anishinaabe descent decides to dig up the past to bring up the darkest hours of colonisation, the patriarchy, and accomodations between heirs. On the stage, a dreamlike journey unfolds, facts resurface, and four women revive the fire Marguerite tried to light. Using poetry, indigenous languages, interviews, songs of mourning and hope, they all embody Marguerite, fully aware that memory is short-lived and that one has to relentlessly reiterate demands for reparation to be heard and become in turn “a good ancestor.” A hymn to memory and to those things that bind us to the past. When will we finally acknowledge history and offer reparations?