Obdurate and heart-rending, L’Amour Telle une Cathédrale Ensevelie explores the migrant experience

L’Amour Telle une Cathédrale Ensevelie – presented in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it weekend by Théâtre français de Toronto in collaboration with Crow’s Theatre Crow’s Theatre and NOUS Théâtre — is a riveting exploration of the migrant experience, rendered with an almost unbearable intensity. 

The production, with performances from February 22 to 25, 2024, at the Fleck Dance Theatre, encapsulates the harrowing journey of a young Haitian who ventures to Québec to reunite with his mother. The visionary behind the narrative is Haitian writer and stage director Guy Régis Jr, who teams with Haitian classical guitarist Amos Coulanges, whose musical genius amplifies the storytelling. With incredible work by a stellar cast, they create a space where opera, theatre, and concert converge into a poignant ode to longing, loss, hope and resilience​​​​​​​​​​​​.

I’m waxing justifiably poetic, but before going any further, I must speak plainly. L’Amour Telle une Cathédrale Ensevelie is a tough watch. This is obdurate, unyielding theatre.

The first third of the show features a Montreal-based couple (an impossibly enraged Nathalie Vairac and a mournful, squabbling Frédéric Fachena) in rapid-fire, highly-stylized set pieces of loud disagreement. Unsettling and unrelenting in its shrillness, it’s almost unwatchable.

The second third of the show shifts suddenly to sweet song –rendered exquisitely and energetically by a talented chorus of Déborah-Ménélia Attal, Jean-Luc Faraux, Dérilon Fils, and Aurore Ugolin. While the four, accompanied by Coulanges, make gorgeous music, projections of real-life migrants fill the screen behind them. 

Here – in song and on screen – is the heartbreaking context for the loud rage and despair of the play’s first third. The choice to blend the theatrical narrative with live classical Haitian music, sung in Creole and French with English surtitles, not only enriches our experience, but erves as a bridge between cultures, highlighting the universality of the migrant’s plight​​.

And the show’s final third? Ah – here is the payoff for the Montreal couple and the Haitian son travelling to see them . . . for the personal and local . . . and for the collective and universal. Our hearts break, yet our souls soar as that Montreal couple – abetted by song – guide us to a conclusion that is at once haunting, beautiful, inspirational and emotionally shattering. 

Ultimately, the flinty and uncompromising nature of L’Amour Telle une Cathédrale Ensevelie sets it apart. This is theatre that does not seek to comfort, but to confront. Through its unflinching portrayal of the migrant experience, the production not only captures the heartache and hope of its characters, but challenges us to sit with our profound discomfort: to try to empathize, and to reflect on the broader implications of migration and displacement. 

The power and unique memorability of L’Amour Telle une Cathédrale Ensevelie lie in its ability to make beauty and tragedy – and music and cacophony – co-exist at almost the exact same moments on the same stage. This artistic achievement speaks to the enduring power of theatre to tell the stories that are too often left in the shadows . . . or lost beneath the waves.

© Scott Sneddon, SesayArts Magazine, 2024