Exploring Moncton on Stage

Satellite Théatre produce the debut play by author Céleste Godin. Overlap promises an uncompromising critique of the City of Moncton.

Matt Carter

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Author Céleste Godin’s debut play hits the Satellite Théatre stage this week with performances beginning Thursday night at the Centre culturel Aberdeen, 140 Botsford Street in Moncton.

Overlap was created as part of a three month residency featuring six emerging artists from the Moncton area. Described as both a love letter and an uncompromising critique of the City of Moncton, Overlap marks Godin’s first foray into theatre.

“Satellite Théatre approached me to ask me to write a play for them,” said Godin. “I’d written in a few different forms such as poetry, essays, and I had a newspaper column for a while, but I had never played with theatre before. In fact, theatre as a writing medium felt very foreign to me.”

Godin credits the residency and support received from Satellite Théatre Artistic Director Marc-André Charron for helping her explore a new form for her work.

“It takes an incredible amount of energy from all involved to make a play,” said Godin. “I’d never worked for so long on an artwork of this scale, and this project taught me many things about my own writing process.”

Staged as a tragic chorus and performed by five young Moncton actors, Overlap asks audiences, what is an individual’s place when anonymity is impossible and how do you get away from yourself when every street mirrors who you are?

“My writing style is a mix of autobiographical storytelling and social commentary, and often touches on identity, both personal and collective,” said Godin. “It seemed natural to me to write for the place where our play would be heard, Moncton. I’m from Halifax and lived there until I moved to Moncton a few years ago so I could be part of its francophone cultural community. In a sense, Moncton is both smaller and bigger than where I’m from.

“My relationship to this town and is very much a love/hate one,” she said. “Overlap is in a sense my tough-love letter to the city I chose to believe in, and that chose to believe in me too.”