Quebec Scene

Written and directed by Véronique Daudelin, Jean-François Hamel, Olivier Normand, and Klervi Thienpont
Produced by Le Théâtre des 4 coins
Co-presented with Théâtre la Catapulte
Presented in French.

Le Fantôme de Canterville (The Canterville Ghost)
England, 1889. For a modest sum, an American family buys the fabled Canterville Manor, haunted since the 16th century by the ghost of Sir Simon of Canterville, guilty of an atrocious crime. To his great consternation, the new owners don’t seem the least bit afraid of him... Théâtre des 4 coins’ colourful, imaginative adaptation of the short story by Oscar Wilde offers an irresistible blend of whimsy, humour and satire.

Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde—playwright, poet, novelist, short story writer and aesthete—was born in Dublin in 1854. After brilliant studies at Oxford, he settled in London, where he shocked Victorian society with his extravagant lifestyle, cynical attitude and audacious plays, many of which were banned. It was his novel The Portrait of Dorian Gray that launched his literary fame. In those days homosexuality was considered a crime, and for his passionate relationship with the young Lord Alfred Douglas, Wilde was sentenced to two years of hard labour. He died in poverty in Paris in 1900. Wilde was renowned for his sharp wit: upon arriving in New York in 1882 to give a series of lectures, he is said to have told a customs officer, “I have nothing to declare but my genius.”