The trilingual musical, Les Filles du Roi, about the arrival of les filles in New France, opens tonight in Vancouver, after two evenings of previews.
The title refers to the term given to young French women (King’s Daughters) who were sent to Canada by the French government in the 17th century to help populate the new world.
On stage until May 27 at the York Theatre, Les Filles du roi is written in English, French, and Kanien’kéha (Mohawk). It is a co-production between Fugue Theatre and Vancouver’s Raven Theatre.
Vancouver-based artist Corey Payette, who wrote Children of God, an emotional musical about Canada’s residential school system, teamed with fellow writer Julie McIsaac to bring the story of the Les Filles du Roi, told from an Indigenous perspective, to the stage.
The project draws on the writers’ personal connections to their French and Indigenous heritage, historical research and cultural collaboration with Mohawk community.
Les Filles du Roi is set in 1665 in New France, in Ville-Marie (Montreal), and is told from the perspective of a young Mohawk brother and sister.
In the musical, Kateri, a young Mohawk girl, and her brother, Jean-Baptiste, find their lives disrupted by the arrival of les filles du roi. Together, they forge an unlikely relationship with a young fille, Marie Jeanne Lespérance, whose dreams for a new life in the French settlement of Ville-Marie are more complicated than she imagined.
Over the course of four tumultuous seasons, French, Mohawk, Métis and English characters build a complex web of relationships that sets the stage for the Canada we know today.
Ticket prices are quite reasonable.
