Helen’s
Necklace

Helen’s Necklace
by Carole Fréchette, in an English version by John Murrell

I’m missing that white cloud around my neck, and I’m missing … so many things.

Helen begins her journey with a simple task and a simple question, “Did you see a little necklace? Tiny white pearls on invisible threads. Not the sort of pearl necklace you’d ever expect. I mean, the pearls just pop up, almost at random, along the little threads …”

In the heart of a chaotic (and unnamed) Middle Eastern city that still carries the scars of a recent war, Helen is attending a conference. She suddenly realizes she has lost her necklace – a necklace of little monetary value but great sentimental value. On an impulse, she stays behind and with the help of a taxi driver, Nabil, Helen tries to retrace her steps. Her journey brings her face to face with the many realities of a war-torn country and examines the various degrees of loss.

She meets a construction foreman who is trying to rebuild: “I know what it feels to lose everything. One night they dropped a bomb on my house. We were in the bomb shelter. When we got back, there was nothing left, not one wall standing.” She meets a mother who is searching for her son: “Only on Mondays. I search all the streets in the neighbourhood, and then I climb up here, so I can see everything in one glance.” As Helen begins to understand what the necklace really meant to her, she also begins to fully understand the meaning of loss through the people she meets: “I have lost the ability to cry out – maybe you found it inside one of your shoes, my ability to cry out, to beat my fists against the wall. Did you happen to find my cry in your purse, in your blouse, in your throat? Open your mouth … Go ahead. You cry out. I want to see. Cry out: ‘We cannot go on living like this. We cannot go on.’ Shout it.”

Quebec playwright Carole Fréchette wrote this play after a trip to Lebanon as part of L’Association Ecritures Vagabondes. She was inspired after meeting with a woman from a camp in Lebanon who asked her if she would write a play about their lives, saying “You know, we can’t go on living like this anymore. Are you going to say it?” Fréchette is an award-winning playwright whose plays The Four Lives of Marie, Elisa’s Skin, John and Beatrice and Helen’s Necklace have all been translated into English by playwright John Murrell (Waiting for the Parade, Shaw Festival, 2004). She was the first playwright awarded the distinguished Siminovitch Prize for Theatre (2002) and her plays have been produced throughout Canada, Belgium, France, Germany, Mexico and Syria. NOW Magazine called Helen’s Necklace “A pearl of a play.”

This is the first Canadian play produced in our Studio Theatre, directed by Micheline Chevrier and features Tara Rosling as Helen and Sanjay Talwar as Nabil.