John and Beatrice

High above the city, Beatrice sits on the 33rd floor of an office tower waiting for the right man to respond to her ad. When John appears, the games begin. But if he wins, what then? A play about the difficulty of connection and the meaning of love.

"John and Beatrice is, quite simply, exquisite: it should be savoured." —Le Soir, Brussels

Helen's Necklace

Helen wanders through a Middle Eastern city looking for a lost pearl necklace. In language as shimmering as the strand of pearls itself—its value isn't what we initially think—Fréchette brings Helen into contact with a series of people, from a friendly taxi driver to a distraught mother and an angrily impassioned man. Helen's world is irrevocably changed by her search for a trinket.

"A pearl of a play... riveting!" —NOW Magazine, Toronto

Carole Fréchette has been a force in Québec theatre for more than twenty-five years. Her plays, translated in several languages, are performed all over the world. She won the 1995 Governor General’s Award for her play Les Quatre morts de Marie (The Four Lives of Marie) and the 1998 Chalmers Award for the same play translated into English. She then received Governor General’s Literary Award nominations for La Peau d’Élisa (Elisa’s Skin) in 1998, for Les Sept jours de Simon Labrosse (Seven Days in the Life of Simon Labrosse) in 1999, and for Jean et Béatrice (John and Beatrice) in 2002. Her play Le Collier d’Hélène (Helen’s Necklace) recently earned her the Sony Labou Tansi Award in France. In 2002, the French association SACD (Société des auteurs et compositeurs dramatiques) awarded her, in Avignon, the Prix de la Francophonie to underline her success in the French-speaking world; the same year, she received in Toronto the Siminovitch Prize, Canada’s most prestigious theatre award. Three English translations of her plays by John Murrell, were published under the title Three Plays by Playwrights Canada Press in Toronto: The Four Lives of Marie, Seven Days in the Life of Simon Labrosse and Élisa’s Skin. She has also translated Colleen Wagner’s The Monument into French.

Carole Frechette's profile page

John Murrell is one of the most frequently produced Canadian playwrights. His plays have been translated into fifteen different languages and performed internationally. His work for the stage includes Waiting for the Parade, a Canadian classic; Memoir, which has been produced world-wide; Chalmers Best Canadian Play Award winners Farther West and The Faraway Nearby; and the libretto for the acclaimed opera Filumena. As a translator, he has created frequently revived versions of Chekhovâ??s Uncle Vanya, The Seagull, and The Cherry Orchard; Ibsenâ??s The Doll House; Rostandâ??s Cyrano de Bergerac; and The Four Lives of Marie, Elisaâ??s Skin, and Seven Days in the Life of Simon Labrosse, all by Carole Fréchette.

John Murrell's profile page

• Short-listed, Governor General's Literary Award for Translation (French to English)

"John and Beatrice is, quite simply, exquisite: it should be savoured." —Le Soir, Brussels

"A pearl of a play… riveting!" —NOW Magazine, Toronto