Langham Court Theatre director Judy Treloar is returning from retirement to direct Michel Tremblay’s play Les Belles-Soeurs.
Starting her career as a young actress in New Zealand, Treloar went on to teach theatre and direct plays in England, Australia, New Zealand, and Victoria. She taught English, theatre, and drama at Glenlyon Norfolk School for 24 years before retiring.
In 1973, Treloar began acting at Langham Court Theatre; between 1978 and her retirement in 2014, she directed 25 plays there. Now, Treloar is ending her passionate, lifelong career in theatre… for the second time.
“I had directed Janet Munsil’s Pride and Prejudice at Langham and I thought that was my final play,” she says. “So I said goodbye. Then this came up.”
Langham Court has been home for Treloar for a long time, and she’s happy to return to the director’s seat there once more. The theatre, which is currently in its 89th season, holds a lot of personal history for Treloar. As a mother of three, she would attend the plays there while she raised her children. The drive there would clear her head and revitalize her passion for theatre.
“In a way, it’s a relief for everybody to come to the theatre for the night and forget about your other life,” Treloar says.
Les Belles-Soeurs will be the grand finale of a year commemorating Canada’s greatest playwrights in honour of the nation’s sesquicentennial year. Treloar says that Tremblay is thought to be one of the greatest Canadian playwrights, if not the greatest.
“First of all, [you] need to see anything by Michel Tremblay,” Treloar says. “I wrote in the program notes that you have to ‘lean forward and listen,’ because you must listen to the words and to who the women [in the play] really are.”
Written and produced in 1965, the play follows the conversations and confessions of a group of women living in a tenement in Montreal in the ’60s. It’s set in the area Tremblay grew up in and reflects his observations of the time. With an all-female cast, the play depicts the harsh reality of being a woman in a male-dominant society, but also reveals the determination and strength of these French-Canadian women.
“It’s just an amazing opportunity to have all these women on stage, without any men,” says Treloar. “If there were men there, they would be telling them where to go and what to do. They get to talk about their lives, their children, their husbands, their priests—it was quite controversial when it was first written.”
The uniqueness of an all-female cast creates a sisterhood on and off the stage for Treloar and her cast. There have been times to recall their common past and times to bond throughout the rehearsal period, she says.
“We’ve all gone down memory lane with our moms and our grandmas and our sisters,” says Treloar. “It’s made me remember my family growing up. My dad was always the boss. My mom would say, ‘Wait ’til your father gets home’; that used to scare us. All of our memories have come back of what it was like when we were young.”
Humorous but painfully nostalgic for her generation, Treloar says the play is just as relevant—if not moreso—for college students today. Les Belles-Soeurs recognizes women who suffer as a result of inequality in society and pays tribute to women and men in any age who fight for equality.
“This is still happening all over the world,” Treloar says. “Men are telling women what to do… Open the paper and look at all the stuff about women who are being abused. This is such a good thing for young people to see—to stand up for yourself and not be afraid.”
Les Belles-Soeurs
Various times, to Saturday, December 2
$17 student tickets, Langham Court Theatre
langhamtheatre.ca