Bachelor : Dolorès once, a woman, always

Even at 50 years of age, Dolorès has not aged a day, according to Monika Pilon, who plays the only character in the tragi-comedy Bachelor, and Édith Cochrane, who is directing it. The third generation of the flamboyant window dresser—first performed by Pauline Martin—is back at work this March in the Cinquième Salle. We met the two women at Place des Arts, during rehearsals for the play written by Louis Saia, Louise Roy, and Michel Rivard in 1979.

Can you introduce us to Dolorès?

Monika Pilon: Dolores is a motormouth with a great desire to please. She is dependent on the love of others and tends to run counter to her own limitations. Often, in romantic relationships, she is brought down to earth with a bang, letting herself be flayed. She is also the kind of person you can become best friends with in two seconds… she spreads her life around and is not afraid to talk about things that are as funny as they are profound.

Pauline Martin was the first to portray Dolores, followed by Sylvie Léonard 20 years later… What will Monika Pilon's Dolores be like?

Monika Pilon: The actresses who played the part before me are very good and I get a little uncomfortable from watching them. I really want to start from scratch and personify my own Dolores, as if she had never existed… it helps to take the pressure off. It's a great challenge, but the text moves me, it stirs up things inside me. I tell myself that if it touches me, it’ll touch the audience.

Édith Cochrane: Everyone has their own reading. One of Dolores’ characteristics is her authenticity. Monika brings her physique, her voice, her delivery. She is not a compositional character… she’ll work with who she is. The further we move through the story, the heavier Dolores’ speech becomes… we have access to her vulnerability and therefore to that of the actress portraying her. It will be a proposition, like when we perform Molière and there are millions of people who have performed his work before us. When you arrive with your own proposition, with your body, your voice, all that you carry as an emotional charge, it changes everything!

Being alone on stage and waxing your legs (since that's what Dolores does)… must modesty be set aside?

Monika Pilon: Oh yeah, but I’ve given birth, so it can’t be worse than that (laughs)... We get started and don’t ask ourselves too many questions! She’s in front of her neighbor with whom she’s comfortable and she just wants to chat, but she’s doing it with someone who doesn’t chat back. She doesn’t address the audience directly, but the audience acts as a secondary character. That's how we get to Dolores’ truth!

It’s a big job both in terms of acting and staging. How will you manage to inhabit the entire stage in the Cinquième Salle?

Édith Cochrane: The strength of this play is in the actress’s interpretation of the powerful text. I am surrounded by experienced designers, so we will support her with a set, lighting, costumes, but without any frill. I’ll go about it quite sparingly… we will have small references to the period, but it won’t be a set from La petite vie. I want the audience to laugh, but I also want everything to be in place so that everyone can experience the emotion of the end of the play.

Bachelor was originally considered a feminist play. Is this still the case in 2024?

Édith Cochrane: The text dates to ’79, yet it still resonates… it says a lot about how women are persistently perceived in society, and about our relationships too. Today, our knowledge is different, we have access to more means of communication. Feminism has evolved, there are things that have been brought out into the open. We talk about consent, we talk about #metoo… all these events mean that now, we know more, because these words exist and have been named.

It's clear that, today, we see Dolores’ situation through our 2024 eyes. We may have more compassion or pity, but at the same time, there is something that is developing inside her, something that was already germinating at the time… she mentions some inequalities regarding her boss or her lover. When you cling to everything that involves feelings, relationships, male/female relationships, friendship or sisterhood, power relationships, all that, it’s still relevant today. The same goes for relationships to image and self-esteem… it's just that they would take shape differently today, probably on her phone. It is feminist in the sense that it is the discourse of a woman in society who asks herself questions.

Monika Pilon: We are still so fixated on appearance, putting forward everything that is perfect in our lives. But we go out to meet people less frequently these days. We don’t allow ourselves—like Dolores did at the time—to turn up at our neighbor’s house for a chat. Maybe this is also something we should be thinking about?

Meet (or get re-introduced to) Dolores in her new Bachelor!