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The Real World?

By Michel Tremblay
Translated by John Van Burek & Bill Glassco

Michel Tremblay has always maintained that lurking inside every playwright there is either a Robin Hood–not necessarily one who steals from the rich to give to the poor–or a second-rate messiah. In his efforts to find a way to illustrate this concept, he remembers his childlike outlook at the time when his first plays were performed and calls to mind his thin-skinned sincerity that doubted nothing and maintained the conviction that he was right in spite of everyone–meaning all those who did not think as he did.

For the widely celebrated playwright, this process involved the mixture of pain and exaltation whipped up in him by the systematic ransacking of his environment in general and his family in particular. In The Real World?, Tremblay returns to the very source of creative work, that notorious first play which supposedly contains the scenes of everything yet to come. And ultimately, he finds “himself” confronted with the same fundamental question over time. Did he have the right? Does he still have the right?

Cast of 4 women and 3 men.

ISBN 13: 9780889222601 | ISBN 10: 889222606
6 W x 9 H inches | 80 pages
$15.95 CAN / $11.95 US
Rights: World
Backlist | Drama | Bisac: DRA013000

QUOTES OF NOTE

A virtuoso piece of writing by a master craftsman.
— Books in Canada

About the Contributors

One of the most produced and the most prominent playwrights in the history of Canadian theatre, Michel Tremblay has received countless prestigious honours and accolades. His dramatic, literary and autobiographical works have long enjoyed remarkable international popularity, including translations of his plays that have achieved huge success in Europe, the Americas and the Middle East.

Awards and Recognition*
Prix du Grand (2009) La Traversée de la ville (Leméac Editeur Inc.)
Blue Metropolis International Literary Grand Prix (2006)
Globe and Mail Top 100 Books (2003) Birth of a Bookworm
Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play (2000) For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again
Chalmers Awards (1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1978, 1986, 1989, 2000)
Governor General’s Performing Arts Award (1999)
Molson Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts (1994)
Louis-Hémon Prize (1994)
Montreal Book Fair Grand Public Prize (1994)
Banff Centre National Award (1992)
Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters of France (1991)
Chevalier of the Order of Quebec (1990)
San Francisco Lesbian and Gay Festival Long-Standing Public Service Award (1989)
CBC Anik Prize (1988)
Athanase-David Lifetime Achievement Prize (1988)
Quebec-Paris Prize (1985)
Chevalier of Arts and Letters of France (1984).

> Go to biography…

John Van Burek has been a practising theatre artist for over twenty years, in both French and English, throughout Canada. He has also worked in the fields of opera, film and television. He is also one of Canada’s leading translators for theatre, most notably of Michel Tremblay’s plays, including Les Belles-Soeurs (Talonbooks). Mr. Van Burek has received several awards and citations for his work, including the Toronto Drama Bench Award for Distinguished Contribution to the Canadian Theatre.

> Go to biography…

Born in Quebec, William Grant (“Bill”) Glassco was a Canadian theatre director, producer and founder of Toronto’s Tarragon Theatre. He then became the artistic director of the CentreStage Theatre Company which merged, in 1988, with the Toronto Free Theatre to become CanStage. In 1982, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.

> Go to biography…