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Quesnel, Joseph

CTE photo
Joseph Quesnel

Playwright/theatre entrepreneur born in Saint-Malo, France in 1749, died in Montreal, Quebec , in 1809.

He was first a sailor and then a captain. He was taken prisoner on the Grand Banks by a British ship in 1779 and taken to Halifax. He arrived in Montreal in 1780 and was married there. In 1789, missing the finer things in life, he decided to found a theatre in the New World. The first production was two plays: Retour imprévu by Jean-François Regnard and Deux billet by Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian. The church immediately signalled its unhappiness with this kind of activity and refused absolution to anyone who went to the shows.

While the battle raged around Quesnel and his collaborators, the theatre continued. In 1790, the first operetta written in Canada, Colas et Colinette, by Quesnel, was presented by the embattled company.

Quesnel, his company and his plays, fell under attack for the rest of his life as he took potshots at the society which surrounded him; in one case at the French Canadians who aspired to English society: L'Anglomanie; ou Dîner à l'anglaise (never performed but circulated in manuscript).

See also: Censorship

Last updated 2009-07-03