Joey Tremblay’s clearest memory of his childhood in a diminishing western- Canadian French town is of the paper-mache elephant his grandmother made, being maliciously run over by a group from a neighbouring English town.
The incident had a profound effect on the young Tremblay who considers it the end of his childhood and the moment of his loss of innocence.
But it inspired An Elephant Memory, an autobiographical story that Tremblay adapted into the fictitious play Elephant Wake in which he also stars.
In revisiting the story, Tremblay said he decided to incorporate aspects of his memories into what he described as “a fictional character, someone who didn’t grow up from an experience but stays blessed or cursed in his own childhood and never moved beyond that.”
Jean Claude was originally a much younger character who merely retold the stories of people he had known, but is now a 60- to 70-year-old man who reminisces on his memories of the town and its demise, Tremblay said.
Creating and inhabiting the world of a character who is both completely naive and oddly wise, was his favourite part of the process, said Tremblay.
Tremblay said he sees Jean Claude’s struggles as universally relatable and described him as “a character who has experienced a great deal of loss in his life and is struggling against a sense of loss and sadness, to maintain hope and joy.”
He referred to the central themes of the story – nostalgia and progress – as a double-edged sword. He said nostalgia sticks people in the past, unable to adjust to change, while progress breaks their connection to memories.
Elephant Wake centres on Jean Claude, the only person left in Ste. Vierge, Saskatchewan, a French community that no longer exists in the plot because of the new, prosperous English town that has grown nearby.
The story is not specifically about Canada’s French-English conflict, but uses it to illustrate the other cultures in the prairies which were diminished by the English, including the Ukrainians and the First Nations people, Tremblay said.
Tremblay said he intended Elephant Wake to present the universal pattern of weaker cultures gradually swallowed up by more dominant ones.
Tremblay uses the medium of a one man monologue to present the character’s own story. By presenting it in this manner, Tremblay attempts to emphasize the loneliness that defines Jean Claude, giving him the responsibility of filling the empty space with his stories.
Although sole actor and writer, Tremblay sees the production as collaboration with the director, designer and stage manager, Bretta Gerecke, in which every element works in cohesion.
He said Elephant Wake is the sort of play where audience presence and emotion is important to intertwine and interact with the drama.
“It is almost impossible for an audience not to be transported.”