The title character of Saint Carmen of the Main is a woman, and not a writer but a popular singer in a sleazy nightclub in the East End of Montréal. But when Carmen comes back from a trip to Nashville full of revolutionary ideas for her act, the parallel will be recognizable to anyone familiar with the history of Québec theatre. When Carmen says that she's tired of the old country-music formulas, that she wants to sing songs with fresh lyrics that relate to the everyday troubles of the audience, it's obvious that she's creating just the sort of stir Michel Tremblay himself created in the theatre when he rebelled against the old formula of farces and melodramas and put on the stage the lively, bizarre street-people of the Main….

The triumphant return of Carmen to her old stomping ground has unfortunate echoes of Hello, Dolly...