With 

 

Isabelle Kerisit,

Queen Elizabeth, Queen of England, Edward's wife

 

Daphné de Quatrebarbes,

Isabelle Warwick, George's wife

 

Julie Garance,

Anne Warwick, future Queen of England

 

Anne Marie Roycourt,

Duchess of York, mother of Anne Dexter, Edward, George and Richard

 

Sarah Vermande,

Queen Margaret, former Queen of England

​

Anastasia Robin,

Anne Dexter, sister of Edward, George and Richard

 

"From the aged Duchess of York, who is 99 years old and will never sit on the throne, to the young Lady Anne who will marry Richard III in order to reign, Chaurette traces the shifting passions and ambitions of six women draxn from Shakespeare's theatre and portrayed here in the timelessness of their quest which, like that of all queens, is both visceral and political... This is a theatre of allusions, metaphysical playwriting of a literary richness which has yet to find its equal in Québec drama"

Robert Levesque, Le Devoir

Normand Chaurette’s The Queens, inspired by Shakespeare’s Richard III, is a fantasy drama that depicts a classic struggle for power and status. Set during the time of the War of the Roses, the play unfolds over a few crucial hours on one afternoon. The king, Edward, lies dying off-stage and the women of the court are jockeying for position. Edward’s wife, Elizabeth, traverses the castle incessantly, searching desperately for her two young sons, the rightful heirs to the throne. Isabel, wife of Edward’s brother, George, and member of the noble house of Warwick, is confident that her own reign as queen is imminent. Anne Warwick, sister and rival to Isabel, weighs a potentially advantageous, but also somewhat Faustian, proposal from Richard, Duke of Gloucester, known as Richard Crookback because of both his physical deformity and his dark reputation. The aged Duchess of York, mother-in-law to both Elizabeth and the sisters of Warwick, yearns for the weight of the crown she was never able to gain by marriage or ascension, despite years spent in proximity to the throne. And the seemingly mute Anne Dexter, a daughter long since disavowed by the Duchess, longs for the most basic of validations: the acknowledgment that she exists. Meanwhile, Margaret, the deposed French-born queen, bitterly wishes the worst on all contenders, current and former, and pines for a glorious exile far from the land of her disgrace.

"Presenting the discourse fo the queens as it plays itself out in the wings of the kingdom of England is no mean feat. This is the negative reflection of royal power which is traditionally male. Chaurette's dialogue is subltle, nervous and dliberately aggressive, royal but also domestic. It is designed to show the confusion of sentiments and resentments, of conflicts no longer real, of reminiscences still painful...These queens seem to exist like figures in a wax museum which is seldom, if ever, visited."

Wladimir Krysinski, Jeu