Controversial Play to be Staged Without Star

Des Femmes director says his play will pay tribute to the convicted murderer who was to star but was banned from Canada.

A play that features music by a French rock star who murdered his girlfriend will go ahead with runs in Montreal and Ottawa, but will make a point of the controversial singer's absence from the starring role. Director Wajdi Mouawad originally cast Bertrand Cantat in the lead role of Des Femmes, but Cantat's conviction in 2004 for beating actress Marie Trintignant to death led women's groups to call for his removal from the production. The federal government subsequently banned Cantat from entering Canada, but the director has stood by his casting choice, and the singer will star when the play is staged outside the country. Mouawad said this week that music Cantat wrote still figures prominently in the play, and that the runs at Montreal's Théâtre du Nouveau Monde and the National Arts Centre in Ottawa will “radically draw attention to the absence” of Cantat.