The street on which he grew up, the people on that street and, in particular, the noisy, crowded quarters where he was forced to spend his childhood left an indelible impression on Michel Tremblay. Rue Fabre to him is not just a street: it is a way of life….

Tree-lined rue Fabre, in northeast Montreal, impresses the visitor as a typical lower-middle-class neighbourhood, not without a certain charm, with its outside staircases, balconies and postage-stamp size front lawns. Tremblay, however, focusses on the promiscuity of life along the back alley, with its filth and stench, peopled by colourful, but desperate characters. (p. 17)

As a source of poetic inspiration, the street achieves its ultimate potential in Tremblay's most recent play, Damnée Manon, Sacrée Sandra, in which we find Sandra, the transvestite prostitute, and Manon, the old maid religious fanatic, pursuing their individual obsessions next door to each...