Stewart Lemoine: Hometown Hero, National Stranger

The New York Times called his piece, *Pith*, “a nostalgic wordsmith's delight.” The Winnipeg Free Press called it an “exquisitely crafted gem.” Canadian Literature Quarterly described his latest work *At the Zenith of the Empire* as “sharp and funny,” and “witty and contemplative throughout.” Other than these few clips, you would be hard pressed to find his name east of Alberta. The founder and former Artistic Director of Edmonton’s Teatro de la Quindicina, "Stewart Lemoine":http://www.canadiantheatre.com/dict.pl?term=Lemoine,%20Stewart has written over fifty original works for the theatre. Some of his plays are considered classics in his home province, yet his name rarely reaches beyond Edmonton’s tight-knit theatre community.

"Teatro La Quindicina":http://www.teatrolaquindicina.com/iWeb/Site/Welcome.html was created twenty-five years ago to stage not only Lemoine’s work but also that of other local playwrights. “Stewart writes for Teatro specifically, for the actors that will perform it. Getting material out there depends on when the company is touring,” says Marianne Copithorne, actor and new artistic director of the Freewill Players Shakespeare festival.

Lemoine himself agrees. “It works in cycles. We performed in Toronto, but had no home venue. Back in Edmonton, we took over the Varscona (Theatre), and made ourselves a home. And then after five years, it was time to go on the road again. So it runs its course.”

In September 2008, he was the recipient of the $50,000 Tommy Banks Performing Arts Award, handed out by Alberta Foundation for the Arts. He has won five Elizabeth Sterling Haynes awards (or, “the Sterlings”, as Albertans call them) for outstanding new play. His original works consistently pack houses in Edmonton, which is no small feat for any Canadian playwright.

When Lemoine does tour his work, it is usually met with praise. Back in 1986, he won a Dora Mavor Moore award for *The Vile Governess and other Psychodramas*. His piece *Shockers Delight!* was staged at the Factory Theatre in Toronto in 1993. In 2004, when members of his company brought Pith to the New York fringe, it won best production of the festival and garnered rave reviews.

*Pith* is about a con artist who makes his way into the home of a depressed old widow and her maid, but not for the reasons one might expect. He doesn’t rob them, but uses a few drawing room chairs and a full cast of his own characters to lead the two women away from their dower daily lives and through an imaginary journey to the Amazon.

It’s a work that celebrates the imagination, as does *Shockers Delight!*, recently produced in Vancouver by Squidamisu Theatre at the Beaumont Theatre, and directed by Matt Kowalchuk (It was also produced at Toronto’s Factory Theatre in their 1994-94 season.) Shockers is about three young university students with odd programs of study (ballroom dancing, golf, 19th century furniture design) that become entangled in an ultimately tragic love triangle. The outcome is often hilarious, surprising, edgy, and deeply moving. Colin Maclean of the CBC said "Stewart Lemoine is an original. There is simply no one, anywhere, who writes like this Edmonton playwright. Shockers Delight! is simple. Spare. Powerful."

But there are those in the Edmonton theatre community who believe that, although his plays do occasionally get produced elsewhere, Lemoine is not receiving the attention he deserves. Lemoine would be the last person to agree with this, but does admit that his style and subject matter makes it hard to apply for grants. “Shockers is hard to put into words, what it’s about,” says Lemoine. “It’s hard to describe what the Canadian angle is.” And describing the Canadian angle helps when applying for Canadian federal funds. “In Canada, we’re grant-dependent, and it’s hard to pitch a play like that and get the money.”

Lemoine was born in Winnipeg in 1960, but moved to Edmonton when he was eight. “I dabbled in writing plays in high school, but got serious when the Edmonton Fringe was created in 1982.” Lemoine created his first work for the fringe that same year, and has written a play for the festival almost every year ever since.

“The Edmonton theatre community make their own work,” says Lemoine. “The Edmonton fringe inspires people to create their own work, to form their own small companies. Audiences aren’t just seeing plays from elsewhere with a local cast. Many are new works by local young artists. The grads from the U of A, the first thing they do is write a play, rather than start auditioning for others. And Edmonton audiences are adventurous. They see plays people wouldn’t normally see.”

Despite Edmonton’s prolific theatre scene, recognition doesn’t come easily from other regions. “There is a barrier between east and west,” says Lemoine. “I think they’re afraid of my work as it doesn’t read the way it plays.”

Lemoine is referring to the “quirky” topics he almost always takes on. Some are either set in or refer to the Victorian era. *Shockers Delight*, for example, takes us to a 19th century German Inn — home to an exquisite piece of furniture — by way of a golf ball. Like Shockers, many of his pieces conjure the parlour room wit of Oscar Wilde. His choice of subjects is not what one would find on the roster of Canadian Literary Themes, such as The Great White North, Angst-Ridden Torontonians or Hard-Done-By-But-Lively-Maritimers.

Because of Lemoine’s unique style of humour, he believes his work is often dismissed as “more lightweight then it is.” But he’s not complaining. By having the freedom to write for an established company, “you don’t have to explain and start anew, go through auditions, all the things that can sometimes take the enjoyment out of theatre. It’s a great help. It’s always fun and rewarding, even in the start-up years when we didn’t have any money. It’s so fulfilling.”

One wonders if there might be more awareness of this uniquely Canadian talent if Lemoine’s fans were in Cabbage Town rather than Varscona. But with this kind of community support, does it matter?

_An anthology of three of Lemoine’s plays was recently published by NeWest Press, titles_ "A Teatro Trilogy":http://www.newestpress.com/catalog/virtuemart/760.html.