But who is that plucked, bird-headed guy at the front of the room? With six coffees in hand, the light from his player in the corner of his mouth, and his hollow cough, he has an energy I can’t bear. A cocaine energizer bunny.
They tell me: This is Dominique Lévesque, our teacher!
The year is 1982. At the peak of my 18 years, I finally set foot in Cégep de Jonquière. Finally accepted into art and media technology after intensive lobbying by my university director, I attend my first acting class.
Not for me! I leave the class immediately, go to the secretary’s office and ask for a teacher change. This guy represents everything that bothers me about a person. I can’t attend a class so imagine a session! My new teacher is Pierre-Paul Legendre, a fine veteran with a soothing voice and the demeanor of Captain Haddock; Yes I want it!
Improv evenings are very popular in Jonquière; 500 spectators gather in the multi-purpose hall every week. There are already stars: Marie-Lise Pilote, Bernard Vandal, Émile Gaudreault and… Dominique Lévesque. I really want to join the cult, so I show up for auditions.
The judge is You-Know-Who. I’m RE-FU-SE. Definitely, our history of humor starts badly…
The core of improvisation contracts. We now organize standing nights at Café Chez le Bedeau, a nice little place across from the Saint-Dominique church (not the same Dominique, a different one). Today it is called Le Côté-Cour.
With a duet number with my friend Stanley Péan, I managed to become a member of this nameless and not yet bloody small group. We play Siamese Twins (Stanley is Black); We are in the absurd. The public and the guru love it! With this insanely mad scientist as mentor, these evenings become a real humor laboratory.
After several months of wild and uncensored partying, I’m taming the beast. Not only does Dominique Lévesque no longer scare me, I honestly find him fascinating. He is THE hot teacher who puts his heart and soul into it. We find him lying on the floor in his office early in the morning, his head resting on his shoes; he found it more comfortable to sleep in cegep. Another day, it’s -35 degrees, Dominique comes to school with his oven gloves: he couldn’t find his gloves.
We are definitely standing in front of an extraordinary being, a creative firework display. I call her Dominique now.
L’apres-midi porte conseil.” loading=”lazy”/>Dominique Lévesque in February 2012 during one of his columns in L’après-midi porte conseil.
Photo: Radio Canada / Francois Lemay
The blood group is formed and I’m in! I invent the character of Verbena. My years of inhaling my sister’s patchouli impregnated with the gyproc of the room she left me has contaminated me!
Dom and I, it’s bathing. He a teacher, I a student. My salary is the minimum, his is the maximum. He helps me financially for the big beers at Bedeau. His obsession with finding new ideas is contagious. It’s a really creative James Bay turbine! His brain is a 100 meter hamster sprinter. I love his presence.
We’re moving to Montreal. We’re taking over Club Soda. We’re hiring a moving truck for the gang. Dominique cashes in on her meager retirement savings to take off with her college friends without a parachute. Our first show is directed by a certain Robert Lepage; it’s a hit. We give six or seven performances a week, we sell tickets, spark criticism, the “Saguenay Connection” comes to the big city! That’s glory, we can now forgo our unemployment benefits.
We consumed our group life like bulimia at Tim Hortons. After 2 tours, 700 performances, the blood type coagulates. Marie-Lise and Émile go to put on a show, Dominique and I choose Costa Rica. We set off for a month to catch our breath, renting a house with a mosquito net in the middle of the jungle. There are four of us, the two ex-Sanguins, Caroline – Dominique’s girlfriend – and André – my boyfriend. We spend our evenings identifying the insects that cluster on the mosquito net. Dominique becomes an entomologist. We listen to Bach’s Prelude and fall asleep drunk to the sounds of monkeys, sloths and toucans.
Dany Turcotte and Dominique Lévesque during their tour of the show “Lévesque-Turcotte reproduce themselves”, 1998
Photo courtesy of Dany Turcotte
When the band broke up without profit, I had $36,000 in my bank account. Dom and I decide to invest. We’ll be co-owners of a quadruplex on the plateau. Purchase price: $215,000. I have a mortgage. We decide to write jokes to pay for it.
We did a first show. Dominique, who acts as director, suffers from severe depression. As a victim of his overactive brain, he tries to tame it with every available artificial paradise. Our show is called New Administration and let’s face it, this one is shaky.
The upside of this storm? We’ll go from friends to brothers in arms.
We have two apartments for rent. A first couple introduce themselves; the two lovebirds are toothless! We say to ourselves: It’s not because you don’t have teeth that you’re not a good person! We sign the rental agreement. Six months later they leave us, leaving us a stack of endless checks as gifts. We forget everything and rent to another couple. They love each other loud and hard. They run away in the middle of the night after three months, especially not forgetting not to pay.
We present a new show, Lévesque-Turcotte reproduction. We invent the character of the block owner who is being exploited by his tenants. Lévesque is doing better and Turcotte is happy! We work with Dominique, me and… his parrot! He’s got this neurotic possessive bird on his shoulder, constantly screaming his name in a crescendo of aggression, ending in a resounding Dominiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiic to make eardrums bleed. His sweaters are soiled with little bayou feces. The show is a success.
Third production: Lévesque-Turcotte arrive in town. We have found our way of working. There are spectators everywhere. We play hundreds of Scrabble games in the car. We often have to start over; Potholes blast small wooden letters. Our record: 12 games between Montreal and Sept-Îles. Dominique also invents quizzes for television; The technical team and I are his guinea pigs for questions. We run from him, exhausted by his relentlessness.
Another great happiness of these moments on the road: silence. That comforting silence of two good friends who don’t feel obligated to fill it.
Fourth and final show: Under observation, our best! Dominique and Caroline separate. After the parrot disappeared, they now have two children, Philippe and Rosalie. The demons of depression return to haunt Dom. I’m going up to see him. He has migraines as big as his forehead. Paralyzed in pain, he lies with a piece of frozen flesh on his head. He spends his nights killing zombies. The noise of the murders pervades its floor, which is also my ceiling. I change my room three times.
I’m involved in an obscure TV show where I play the role of the madman of the Ro! Dominique became a consultant for several shows; he is mr quiz. When we need ideas, we call 1-800-Lévesque. Everyone he’s worked with speaks to me about him as a fascinating bug. Then comes the little seduction. Dominique is involved in the production. We leave the road to visit villages, but mainly villagers. Dom is the director for people who have never worked in television. He is perfect! He is a teacher at heart. His eyes shine after the performance of those involved. He is authentic and sincere, he leaves a mark on many hearts.
The rest is the story I wish I never had to write…
Dany Turcotte
Photo: Radio Canada / Ariane Labrèche
It’s December 20th, 2016, I’m on Highway 55, between Orford and Drummondville, driving to Saguenay for Christmas. My phone is ringing. It’s Pascale, Dominique’s girlfriend. She’s in Honduras, she tells me he’s dead and his body is in the trunk of a truck; He drowned.
He will be back in a small box (his cremated body weighed five pounds; we weighed him because he would like to know).
You just ripped a piece off me. Recognizing your own disappearance is a very long process. It’s been seven years and he still visits me in my dreams; We’re doing shows, he’s full of stress, but everything’s fine!
I’m not a believer, I know it’s not in heaven, when you’re alive you’re on, and when you’re dead you’re off! On the other hand, he lives through his beautiful children (Philippe, Rosalie, Neo), in all the students he inspired, in all the jokes, the questions he wrote. I have pictures of him “banging”, I see his big eyes and big frown looking for solutions, I see him booting his computer so hard our hair is moving, I see him hundreds of pots of tomato sauce he brews a 2 x 4, I see him get bitten by his Catastrophe cat and spend two weeks in the hospital, I see him walking down Maple Avenue and being so deep in thought he makes me not even recognizing, I see him locking his bike with a six inch wide chain, too tired to be robbed, I hear him trying to find his tired guy’s voice for getting off late…
I buried some of your ashes under a lilac (your favorite flower). Every spring the deer come to pay homage to you, to eat the branches. The tree is weak and tormented in your image! Yes, you were much more exhausted than tired, but it’s stronger than me, I allow myself to talk to you even if you can’t hear me.
Do I miss you, damn fool!
Launch of the widget. Skip the widget?
Cover illustration by Sophie Leclerc based on a photo by Ariane Labrèche
end of the widget. Back to the top of the widget?