Contemporary Acadian Theatre in New Brunswick

From Antonine Maillet’s canonical La Sagouine (Les Feux Chalins, 1971) to Emma Haché’s postmodern Murmures, produced by Théâtre populaire d’Acadie (TPA) in the winter of 2006, contemporary Acadian theatre has matured and developed a sense of itself in an interrelationship with the community that is both complex and dynamic. While playwrights like Haché or Herménégilde Chiasson continue to explore aspects of Acadian history, their plays like Murmures or Pour une fois (l’Escaouette 1999–2004) interrogate the assumptions of that history and of the Acadian nationalism that has been so closely allied with a mythologized past. In the relatively short span of time since Louis J. Robichaud became the first Acadian premier of New Brunswick in 1960 and subsequently instituted a number of measures in education, language equality and economic structures that rebalanced the relationship between English and French communities in the province, cultural and identitary assertiveness of the Acadian renaissance (or “miracle” – both metaphors are heard) has seen Acadie and Acadians develop from being significantly disadvantaged to asserting economic, political and cultural power. From the earliest years, theatre has played a role in the construction of this identity, and an examination of the situation of contemporary theatre in Acadie1 in New Brunswick will make it clear that both theatre and society have moved beyond traditional nationalist narratives.