La Litière (1994), Rappel (1995) and Ressusciter (1996), published together here in English translation as Embedded, Apocalypse, and Resurrection respectively, make up a trilogy of plays featuring Gen-Xers Ludwig and Mae. Ludwig, trained as an engineer, hasn’t been able to find work since graduating some time ago. The fact that he is sardonic, philosophically inclined and suicidal hasn’t helped in this regard. Mae, on the other hand, is an actress who has never been out of work. Caught in a perverse relationship, she plays into Ludwig’s constant mind games until one day she decides she’s had enough. Embedded establishes their twisted Strindbergian relationship, while introducing the Philosopher-cum-Chinese Delivery Guy—the absurdist character who acts as a catalyst for the simmering emotional crisis about to explode. Apocalypse is a monodrama in which Ludwig stages his own suicidal ceremonial (along with unlikely allegorical characters such as a Pope, Giacometti's Cow and a Leather-Clad Muse). Resurrection is Mae’s testimonial, where she confronts and reconciles herself with Ludwig’s death, breaks the cycle of their co-dependency, and finally comes into her own.
Together, these plays literally “stage” the internalized and therefore repressed failure of the search for an authentic life in art: the decorative nihilism of the post-modern ethos. Taking us on a cathartic journey from despair to exhilaration—at times perilous, comic, edgy and passionate—Ludwig & Mae releases its audiences from the artificial dark of the theatre into the liberating light of day, radiant with a new understanding: life does not imitate art, life makes art.
This trilogy established Louis Patrick Leroux as a leading figure of the Franco-Ontarian artistic renaissance of the 1990s. Rappel Apocalypse, in particular, was quickly identified as a turning point from what had become a stultifying, identity-driven literary tradition, to a burgeoning of artistic freedom and formal exploration.

Louis Patrick Leroux is an associate professor in both the English and French departments at Concordia University. A playwright and theatre director, he is also a scholar whose academic research focuses on cultural discourse, research-creation, Québec theatre, and contemporary circus.He was playwright in residence at Sudbury’s Théâtre du Nouvel-Ontario (1993–94, 2005–06, and 2006–07), the Leighton Artists’ Studios at the Banff Centre for the Arts in 1994, and the CEAD International playwrights residency in 1999. He founded and managed Ottawa’s Théâtre la Catapulte in the 1990s and has since focused on impossible, improbable, and necessary drama.

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Shelley Tepperman has a long history in Canadian theatre specializing in new play dramaturgy, project development and translation for the stage. Her many translations from French (and occasionally, Spanish and Italian)—have been produced at CBC radio and on stages across North America, and two were nominated for the Governor General’s Award. Her play translations include Suzanne Lebeau’s A Giant in the Land of Men (Comment vivre avec les hommes quand on est un géant), Michel Monty’s Freak Accidents (Accidents de Parcours) and Dominic Champagne’s The Forbidden City (La Cité Interdite) and Playing Bare (La Répétition). Tepperman has worked for CBC Radio developing, adapting and directing/producing radio dramas for national broadcast. She also works in documentary film and television as a writer, story editor and director. She holds a Master’s Degree in the Dramatic Arts from the Université du Québec.

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“… audacious avant-garde spectacles of sexual and cruel impulses.”
— Jane Moss