Twenty-five years after the disappearance of Julie Surprenant, her friend and playwright Sarianne Cormier signs her a love letter with Juliea play aimed at honoring his memory… and, above all, preserving it. “I never want people to forget it,” she confides.
The tragedy shook all of Quebec; one November evening in 1999, Julie Surprenant vanished in the few meters separating the bus stop where she disembarked and her home. The teenager was finally declared dead in 2011, but her disappearance was never solved, nor was her body found.
Photo courtesy Julie Artacho
Sarianne Cormier remembers that November evening. And, above all, of those who followed. Because these two teenagers were close, evolved within the same group of friends who met in the corridors of their high school in Terrebonne or on Île-des-Moulins.
Today she therefore wishes to make known the true face of Julie Surprenant, much more than the media hype or the police investigation which followed her disappearance.
“Julie is not the girl we saw on the front page of the newspapers. She was funny, she was free… That’s what I want people to remember,” explains the playwright who also directed this show presented at La Licorne.
The Quebec Journal
The memories come back
It’s in 2019, during a vigil marking the 20the anniversary of the disappearance of Julie Surprenant that the idea was born in the mind of Sarianne Cormier to write a play on the repercussions of this tragedy on her group of friends.
Reunited with some of them, the playwright saw buried – or repressed? – memories and stories resurface. – for many years.
“A friend told us that he had seen her near the bus stop and that he felt guilty for not having gone to see her. Her boyfriend at the time remembers playing drums all night until his hands bled. Many people still carry this tragedy with them today. Because, as teenagers, we are not equipped to experience that,” she says.
An important endorsement
Although Julie Surprenant’s family is not involved in this project, her sister, Andrée-Anne, gave her approval to Sarianne Cormier before the writing process even began. She also attended a dress rehearsal of the show a few days ago.
“I would never have written Julie if Andrée-Anne had not given me her authorization. Because I have a lot of admiration for the way she overcame this ordeal. And this show is my way of telling her and [aux] others who are still there, that I love them,” says Sarianne Cormier.
- The play Julie is presented at La Licorne in Montreal until November 16. She will then take the stage at the Théâtre Alphonse-Desjardins in Repentigny from November 27 to 30.
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