STUDY GUIDE Forests - Tarragon Theatre

Study guide
Forests
by Wajdi Mouawad | translated by Linda Gaboriau
STARRING
Dmitry Chepovetsky
DIRECTOR
Richard Rose
The Year of Magical Thinking
Matthew Edison
SET & COSTUME DESIGN
Karyn McCallum
Vivien Endicott-Douglas
by Joan Didion | starring Seana McKenna
LIGHTING DESIGN
A Belfry David Theatre Fox Production, Victoria
Kimberly Purtell
Sophie Goulet
SOUND DESIGN
DIRECTOR
Brandon McGibbonMichael
Shamata Thomas Ryder Payne
Alon NashmanSET
& COSTUME STAGE DESIGNER MANAGER
John Ferguson
Stéfanie Séguin
Liisa Repo-Martell
Jan Alexandra Smith
RH Thomson
Terry Tweed
LIGHTING DESIGNER
Michael Walton
COMPOSER
Brad L’Écuyer
STAGE MANAGER
Anne Murphy
TORONTO PREMIERE NOV 2– DEC 12, 2010 | MAINSPACE
ENGLISH PREMIERE APRIL 19–MAY 29, 2011 | EX TRA SPACE
season sponsor
photo of Seana McKenna by Terry Manzo
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Forests Study Guide was written and contributed to by:

AIMÉE
Someone was playing with the light.
FREEDMAN
Did you see anyone?
AIMÉE
A soldier from World War I. He jumped up on the table and lunged at me holding a knife.
FREEDMAN
I have to ask you some questions. They might seem simplistic at first, I apologize for that, but I must ask
you to answer very precisely. My name is Jeremy Freedman and I am a neurologist. Could you repeat my
name and my profession?
AIMÉE
Jeremy Freedman. Neurologist.
FREEMAN
What is your name?
AIMÉE
Aimée Lambert.
FREEDMAN
What are your parents‟ names?
AIMÉE
Marie and Jacques Lambert. They‟re both dead.
FREEDMAN
Were they your biological parents?
AIMÉE
Adoptive.
FREEDMAN
What‟s the date today?
AIMÉE
Monday, November 17, 1989

FREEDMAN
Where are we?
AIMÉE
Saint-Luc Hospital.
FREEDMAN
In what city?
AIMÉE
Montreal.
FREEDMAN
I‟m afraid so. With the weather outside, we‟d be better off in the tropics. You told me you saw a soldier just
before your seizure. What war was he fighting in?
AIMÉE
World War I.
FREEDMAN
What makes you say that?
AIMÉE
I don‟t know. I just know it was World War I.
FREEDMAN
Do you take drugs or alcohol?
AIMÉE
Alcohol, occasionally.
FREEDMAN
Any previous history in your biological family?
AIMÉE.
My mother. An alcoholic. Bad. But not him. I don‟t know before that.
FREEDMAN
What are their names?
AIMÉE

Achille Volant. A Micmac Indian. Her name‟s Luce Davre. But what difference does it make? Strange.
I‟ve already been through this interrogation.
FREEDMAN
Stare at the light. What year is it?
AIMÉE
1917. I‟ve already been through this.
FREEDMAN
What year did you say?
AIMÉE
1917.
FREEDMAN
Stare at the blinking light. My name is Jeremy Freedman, neurologist. What is my name and my profession?
AIMÉE
Lucien Blondel. Lucien? Deserter. Lucien? Lucien?
Epileptic seizure.
FREEDMAN
You have just had another seizure, a partial one this time, that I brought on by playing with the light. Were
you aware of it?
AIMÉE
I saw the soldier from World War I again. A battle. Two people fighting. He was trying to kill someone.
FREEDMAN
Do you know anyone named Lucien Blondel?
AIMÉE
No. Why? What‟s going on?
FREEDMAN
I‟m afraid I can‟t answer that question yet. But the results of the encephalogram, the scan and your blood
and urine tests should tell us more. In the meantime, try to get some rest, protect your eyes from the light.
And don‟t worry about the baby.

ANNOUNCER
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Tragedy struck at the end of the day at the École
polytechnique in Montreal where a gunman killed fourteen people and wounded thirteen
others. The fourteen dead are all women. After unleashing terror on several floors of the
building, the killer took his own life. Claude Gervais is on the scene. Claude, earlier this
evening, the police held a press conference. What did we learn from that press conference?
REPORTER 1
Guy Saint-Laurent, Chief of police at Station 13, explained how the events began. Let‟s
listen to what he had to say:
POLICE CHIEF
Apparently the suspect entered a classroom during a lecture and he shot the women who
were attending that class.
ANNOUNCER
The shooting must have gone on for quite a while, Claude. Is it true that people were found
wounded on several floors of the School?
REPORTER 1
It certainly went on for a few minutes, because after the engineering class where the men
were told to leave and the women forced to stay and they were shot, bodies were found on all
three floors. Let‟s listen now to the report my colleague Ruth Loiselle has prepared.
REPORTER 2
At the end of the day here at the École polytechnique, many students were in shock. They
told us that the gunman ordered the women to stand on one side of the classroom and the
men on the other.
WITNESS
I discovered two women lying on the ground, one woman‟s face was completely destroyed
on one side, the bullet had hit her in the eye, there was blood all over the floor, and the other
one was still alive, that‟s what was most surprising, that other person… another girl, because
the guy went around killing girls only.
REPORTER 2
Distressed parents in tears were looking for their children. Tomorrow was the last day of
classes, a very tense time of the year for the students, just before the exams. The victims were
all young women for whom everyone had very high hopes. This is Ruth Loiselle, in
Montreal.

Gérard the boy giraffe and Ludivine.
LUDIVINE
Gérard the boy giraffe, I am Ludivine.
GÉRARD
No bird in the confines
No number in the rhizome of hands.
LUDIVINE
I came as soon as I could. Nothing is easy now that France is occupied, the Germans are suspicious about
everything. I looked for you everywhere and now I‟ve found you locked up in this insane asylum. You
speak in poems and paintings, but you are not insane.
GÉRARD
Nevermore, no more tomorrows,
Throw your heart by the wayside
Throw away your useless heart.
LUDIVINE
Gérard, are you Gérard the boy giraffe? Does the name Ludivine mean anything to you?
GÉRARD
The mist pierces you in the animals‟ arena.
LUDIVINE
The mist pierces you in the animals‟ arena. We are connected to each other without knowing why. What key
do we hold for each other? Gérard. Answer me.
GÉRARD
What time is it?
LUDIVINE
Almost noon.
GÉRARD
Then soon the cathedral bells will ring,
The fluttering of the flags floats
On the wind heralding a new day.

LUDIVINE
Gérard. Whoever brought me to the orphanage in Nancy a few days after my birth left a letter: “ My name is
Ludivine, please deliver me to Gérard the boy giraffe, son of Albert Keller, the son of Alexandre Keller.”
Albert Keller and Alexandre Keller have been dead and buried for ages. You are the only one left. Are you
my father? Are you my brother? I am Ludivine. Are you Gérard?
GÉRARD
How long now this stuttering at the dawn of my window
Waterfalls cascade in the fine veil of daylight
The world that loved me.
Where is the tiger so wisely free
And the giraffe that loved me?
She came to the rim of my eyes
To lick every instant of my future.
And the panther I loved so dearly
And the voice of the gibbons
And all those birds who loved me?
16. Cemetery
Standing at the grave of Louis, Rose and Adrien Davre. Douglas answers the phone.
LOUP
We‟ve been going round in circles in this cemetery for hours. Now that we‟ve finally found the grave, we
can leave, unless you want to have a picnic or something.
DOUGLAS DUPONTEL
Louis Davre: 1886 – 1953. Rose Davre : 1892 – 1962. Adrien Davre: 1924 – 1938. Ludivine‟s little brother,
looks like he died at 14. No Ludivine.
LOUP
Ludivine, mother of Luce who is the mother of Aimée who is the mother of Loup. Ludivine who was
abandoned in an orphanage abandoned Luce who abandoned Aimée who abandoned Loup. Who will Loup
abandon?
DOUGLAS DUPONTEL
Loup won‟t abandon anyone.
LOUP

That‟s why Loup will never have any children and will never love anyone. End of story. We can go home
now.
DOUGLAS DUPONTEL
Loup, we‟re about to put the pieces of the puzzle together.
LOUP
So? Once the pieces are put together? What am I going to do?
DOUGLAS DUPONTEL
You will fall in love.
LOUP
Bullshit. A girl with absolutely no sense of style. Who could love that?
DOUGLAS DUPONTEL
What are you really afraid of, Loup?
LOUP
I‟m afraid I won‟t find my place in the world. It‟s important to find your place in the world when you‟re 16,
right???
DOUGLAS DUPONTEL
You have plenty of time, you‟re young.
LOUP
No, I don‟t have plenty of time and I‟m not young. There‟s nothing dumber, nothing thicker, than someone
young who calls herself young! That means she‟s already dead! I want everything, right now and I want it to
be beautiful, great, magnificent, overwhelming and as obvious and clear as the falling rain. Do you realize,
Douglas, that you are the person I‟ve talked to the most in my entire life? Isn‟t it obvious? If I had been a lot
older, I would‟ve fallen in love with you, but I‟m not a lot older and you‟re not younger, so I get to carry on
the unhappy tradition: another doomed love story. Did you ever really love someone? How is it? What‟s the
cure for unhappiness, Douglas? I mean, what can save us from the horrors of loving?
DOUGLAS DUPONTEL
We have to solve the enigma of your life, Loup. And find Ludivine‟s life.
LOUP
And then what?
DOUGLAS DUPONTEL
We don‟t know yet, so anything is possible. Think of it: what if Ludivine, at the time of her death, thought
of Loup? What if as she was dying, Ludivine started to cry because she had the presentiment of how fragile

Loup‟s heart would be? And what if Ludivine wanted to tell Loup something, to help her find the meaning
of her life, help her find her place in the world, her identity?
LOUP
Wanted to tell her what?
DOUGLAS DUPONTEL
That‟s exactly what we‟re both trying to find out. What important thing did Ludivine want to tell us at the
moment of her death, so important the she managed to make a piece of her own skull appear in your
mother‟s brain? And why didn‟t my father discover it?
Why did you and I meet, Loup? Why did I become so attached to you? Why, if you ever disappeared or
were hurt, would I be unable to bear it?
LOUP
Shut up.
DOUGLAS DUPONTEL
What do I have to do with you? What do you have to do with me? We don‟t have the same blood, we hardly
speak the same language, we‟re not the same age. So why? Why didn‟t I ever have a child of my own?
Loup?...
LOUP
Why?
DOUGLAS DUPONTEL
Why?
LOUP
We should leave now. The sky‟s overcast, it‟s going to rain.
LUDIVINE
Gérard, I am Ludivine. Are you Albert Keller‟s son?
GÉRARD
It is you know like an ambiguous shadow
To be a witness today
To still be
To be and to be
Where distress is so great it is spoken without song.
17. I will never abandon you

LUDIVINE
I‟m going mad! Gérard, you are the only person who can help me find out who I am and you refuse to talk,
you tell me nothing and meanwhile, every day people are being arrested, deported, taken away in trains that
are probably made and sold by the Keller factories. Gérard, the family we might both come from is
manufacturing the trains of horror, and in the middle of all this horror that gives us daily cause to despair,
there is your silence. Gérard! You are Gérard the boy giraffe and you are not insane… Please…
GÉRARD
The worst is this numbered duty
Engraved
Beneath the raped rag
And innocent you want to hear me
In the sparkle of sun and water.
LUDIVINE
I guess I have to leave, then. No more memory for poor Gérard, and perhaps it‟s just as well. You won‟t see
your friends die, you won‟t see your friends leave, you won‟t see your friends burn. It‟s just as well. Look.
It‟s going to rain.
GÉRARD
I once loved you
I remember I recall
In the hue and cry of the new day
I remember I recall
It was a neverending refrain.
Listen to me, listen
Dry your tears in the new day
Dry your tears.
I will never abandon you.
LUDIVINE
What? What did you say?
GÉRARD
I will never abandon you!
Ludivine shows her back to Gérard : « I will never abandon you.» is tattooed on her back. Gérard wails.
GÉRARD
Who are you?
17. The happiness of giraffes

LUDIVINE
I don‟t know! “ I will never abandon you.” – this sentence tattooed on my back since the day I was born
failed to keep its promise, since I was abandoned.
GÉRARD
Did you know the zoo? How are the animals? And how are Jeanne and Marie?
LUDIVINE
Gérard, I don‟t know anything about myself. Neither my mother‟s name, nor my father‟s. And nobody ever
told me about a zoo. Are you really Gérard?
GÉRARD
Gérard the boy giraffe, son of Albert and Odette, Jérémie and Hélène‟s little brother, and like you, I wear
my name tattooed on my back.
Gérard shows her his bare back with the tattoo: “Gérard.”
DOUGLAS DUPONTEL
This is the genealogy of the Keller family: Alexandre Keller had a son: Albert. Albert had three children
with Odette Garine: twins, Hélène and Jérémie, and a son named Gérard. In 1874, Albert settled with his
family on an estate in the middle of the Ardennes forest. Loup, if Ludivine is a descendant of that family,
that means you are, too.
LUDIVINE
What are you going to do?
LOUP
Now what do we do?
GÉRARD
I have to go back to the zoo!
DOUGLAS DUPONTEL
Meet the notary who took care of the Keller family affairs.
GÉRARD
The giraffe and I are waiting for the rain. Jérémie and Hélène told me that the giraffe loves the rain and I
love it when the giraffe is happy.
Rain in 2006. Rain in 1943. Rain in 1874.
LOUP
Here comes the rain.

LUDIVINE
Do you hear that?
GÉRARD
At last!
LOUP AND LUDIVINE
It‟s raining.
GÉRARD
Papa, mama, Jérémie, Hélène! Look… the giraffe is happy!

NOTARY
When I heard you say Gérard Keller‟s name, I felt as if time had come to a standstill. My father always
hoped to see this day and my grandfather even more so. This notebook became a legendary object in my
family. Would you like to see it? Come into my office. And since you‟re interested in Ludivine Davre‟s life
, I‟ll show you the strange portrait of the Keller family she painted herself. Come this way. We‟ve tried to
keep the notebook in the best condition possible, but as you can see, it has been through a lot. It was given
to my grandfather who passed it on to my father who passed it on to me. Here it is.
DOUGLAS DUPONTEL
Gérard Keller gave you this notebook!
NOTARY
Not to me, I wasn‟t born yet. He gave it to my grandfather, but it‟s a very emotional moment for me to give
it to you today. It‟s as if an era were coming to an end.
DOUGLAS DUPONTEL
Why have you decided to give it to us, without even finding out who we are and where we come from?
NOTARY
Because those were its owner‟s instructions. The original will was drawn up by my grandfather, Ambroise
Petit, notary to Gérard Keller. Gérard Keller, known in the local lore as Gérard the boy giraffe, called upon
my grandfather in 1951 to notarize the sale of a property located in the middle of the Ardennes Forest, and
to draw up his will. In his will, as strange as it might seem, Gérard Keller bequeaths the present sealed
notebook to whomever might come to inquire about him. And this bequest is to be executed automatically,
foregoing any references or verification. Apparently he was very explicit on this point.
LOUP
No one‟s ever come since then?
NOTAIRE
Obviously not. So this notebook now belongs to you. I am delivering it to you as Gérard Keller instructed.
And this is the painting I told you about. Gérard Keller gave it to my grandfather as a gift. You can
recognize Gérard Keller with the shaved head, but there is no way of identifying the other people.
DOUGLAS DUPONTEL
Ludivine was a painter?
NOTARY
Quite talented as you can see, but the war put an end to her aspirations.

DOUGLAS DUPONTEL
Did your grandfather ever meet her?
NOTARY
They were in the Resistance together. The Stork network. They helped the English, Canadian and American
aviators get back to the free zone when their planes were shot down.
DOUGLAS DUPONTEL
This notebook would seem to be Gérard Keller‟s diary.
NOTARY
I couldn‟t say.
HÉLÈNE
Gérard!
NOTARY
No one was allowed to read it before you.
a. Abandoned
HÉLÈNE
Gérard! Gérard, we should leave!
GÉRARD
We will leave, Hélène, but I have to go into the world first to prepare our arrival. I‟ll visit the cities and I‟ll
try to find a zoo that will take the animals. And I‟ll find us a place to live.
HÉLÈNE
No! I‟ll go crazy here all alone.
GÉRARD
I‟ll be back, Hélène, I promise you.
HÉLÈNE
You promise?
GÉRARD
Yes, I promise.
HÉLÈNE
You‟ll come back?

GÉRARD
I‟ll come back.
HÉLÈNE
You won‟t abandon me?
GÉRARD
I will never abandon you!
LUDIVINE
I will never abandon you!
HÉLÈNE
Never!
DOUGLAS DUPONTEL (reading)
“Never!”
GÉRARD
I said it. I promised, I swore, a hundred times over.
HÉLÈNE
Promise me again, promise me, Gérard!
LUDIVINE
I will never abandon you!
HÉLÈNE
Again!
LOUP
I will never abandon you!
HÉLÈNE
Again.
GÉRARD
I will never abandon you!
DOUGLAS DUPONTEL (lisant)
“And I left never realizing that I was headed for sorrow, the tidal wave that would tear the fabric of my
life.”

GÉRARD
I will never abandon you!
DOUGLAS DUPONTEL (reading)
“And I, in turn, broke a magnificent promise.”
GÉRARD
Hélène! Hélène! I left and I never returned.
LOUP
I will never abandon you.
HÉLÈNE
Gérard!
GÉRARD
Hélène! Hélène! I never returned. You can‟t imagine what it‟s like to discover cities and war, animals that
are sacrificed and human beings who are massacred by work and neglect, by ugliness and fatigue. To
discover all that at once. Hell drives a person mad and they locked me up, and now, years later, you arrive in
my life, Ludivine, like a reminder, a message, an echo of my old promise, as if it were my sister Hélène‟s
skin calling to me through your skin: “Come back, I‟m waiting for you.” You are too young to be Hélène‟s
daughter.
LUDIVINE
Then who am I?
GÉRARD
Jeanne‟s daughter, or Marie‟s, or maybe…
LUDIVINE
What?
GÉRARD
No! I have to go back to the zoo! I‟ll try to find out, Ludivine! I promise you. I wish I could find other
words, but I can only say: I promise you. Promises are sometimes truer in their pledge than in their failure,
so I promise you that if I discover whose daughter you are, I‟ll do everything in my power to let you know. I
promise you I will. On my knees. You are the one who brings the word, Ludivine. I‟m leaving for the zoo.
I‟ll take this notebook with me and I‟ll write to you. I will help you. The quiet tread of an angel – it always
appears where one least expects it.

. Revealed
DOUGLAS DUPONTEL (reading)
“After three months, Hélène realized she was pregnant again, without knowing if the father was Albert or
her brother, Jérémie. She gave birth to twins. A daughter she named Léonie and a son to whom she gave no
name. A monstrous, formless child, but alive, very alive. It was Léonie who told me that herself when I
went back to the zoo. She was living alone, with no sense of time, no sense of the world. If this book ends
up in caring hands, I beg you, please find Mademoiselle Ludivine Davre and let her know that she is the
daughter of Léonie Keller and Lucien Blondel, a soldier who deserted the war in 1918 and died in the pit of
the zoo, trying to free Hélène, held prisoner by her monstrous son. After the pit caught fire and set fire to the
house and forest, Léonie took Ludivine and fled by the river. When she reached the outside world, she
understood that this world would be unbearable for her. Léonie had never known anything but the zoo and
the forest. But she wanted her daughter to know a freedom she had never known. The forest for Léonie and
the world for Ludivine. A mother‟s sacrifice for her daughter. Léonie tattooed on Ludivine‟s back the
promise I had made to Hélène: „I will never abandon you.‟ And she took the baby to an orphanage and gave
her to the world with this note: „I am Ludivine, deliver me to Gérard the boy giraffe, son of Albert Keller,
the son of Alexandre Keller.‟ Léonie died last night. I buried her in the middle of the forest. The year is
1951. I will go back to the world tomorrow. I‟ll sell the zoo and the land, I‟ll be free of all attachments.
From this day on, I‟ll watch the skies and hope to see the touching silhouette of a giraffe travelling in the
magnificent shape of the clouds.”
GÉRARD
I am Gérard… that‟s who I am!

© Tarragon TheaTre 2011