Lilies (play)

Lilies (French: Les feluettes) is a critically acclaimed play, written by gay Quebec playwright Michel Marc Bouchard, which premiered in 1987.

The play concerns the confession of an aging prisoner to a bishop. Through the confession, and the staged scenes acted out by the male prisoners in the prison chapel, we learn that the bishop and the prisoner were part of a gay love triangle, and that the bishop was responsible for the death of a young man many years ago. The play's English translation by Linda Gaboriau was published in 1991, and was made into a film called Lilies, which was directed by John Greyson.

External links

Play

Play may refer to:

In literature and publications

In films

In television

Play (Joanna MacGregor album)

Play is a 2002 album by Joanna MacGregor. The album was released on the SoundCircus label and was a nominee for the Mercury Music Prize.

References

Play (Robyn song)

"Play" is a song by Swedish recording artist Robyn from her second studio album My Truth (1999). Robyn wrote the track in collaboration with Ulf Lindström and Johan Ekhé, who also helmed production. BMG Sweden released it as the album's second single on 21 July 1999 with the non-album song "Good Thang" as its B-side. Musically, "Play" contains some world music influences and a "playful" vibe.

"Play" received positive critical response and became Robyn's seventh consecutive top 40 entry on the Sverigetopplistan singles chart, where it peaked at number 31. The singer performed the song live while promoting the parent album, but the single itself received limited promotion. As with the album, "Play" was not serviced outside of Sweden.

Background and composition

"Play" was written by Robyn, Ulf Lindström and Johan Ekhé. Lindström and Ekhé recorded Robyn's vocals and produced the track at Lifeline Studios in Stockholm, Sweden. Almnils Erson, Pär-Ola Claesson, Gunilla Markström and Olle Markström played the strings and Niklas Gabrielsson provided handclaps, while Lindström and Ekhé played all other instruments. The duo also managed arrangement and mixing; both these tasks were done at Lifeline Studios. Britta Bergström and Angela Holland sang backing vocals alongside Robyn. Björn Engelmann and Henrik Jonsson were enlisted to master the track at Cutting Room Studios in Stockholm.

Lilies (film)

Lilies is a 1996 Canadian film directed by John Greyson. It is an adaptation by Michel Marc Bouchard and Linda Gaboriau of Bouchard's own play Lilies. It depicts a play being performed in a prison by the inmates.

Plot summary

Expository narration

Lilies is set in a Quebec prison in 1952. Jean Bilodeau (Marcel Sabourin), the local bishop, is brought to the prison to hear the confession of Simon Doucet (Aubert Pallascio), a dying inmate. But Doucet in fact has a very different revelation for Bilodeau: he has enlisted his fellow inmates to stage a play set in 1912, when Bilodeau and Doucet were childhood friends.

The play within the film

Most of the film consists of the play within the film, presented by the inmates for Bilodeau and Doucet. Because it is taking place within a prison, the female roles are portrayed by the male prisoners. The young Bilodeau and Simon are performed by younger inmates (Matthew Ferguson and Jason Cadieux).

Lilies (BBC TV series)

Lilies is a British period-drama television series, written by Heidi Thomas, which ran for one eight-episode series in early 2007 on BBC One. The show's tagline was "Liverpool, 1920. Three girls on the edge of womanhood, a world on the brink of change." Due to lower than expected ratings, the BBC did not commission a second series.

Outline

Lilies details the lives of Iris, May and Ruby Moss, three Catholic sisters living with their widowed father and brother in a terraced house in Liverpool in the early 1920s. The story is set in the years immediately after the First World War and, as such, the after effects of that conflict are apparent.

The story depicts a life lived on a knife-edge of poverty, tempered by various kinds of love. All three girls must make their own way in the world. In the course of the series, each sister tastes passion for the first time, and their lives, newly launched, are changed forever.

Production

Heidi Thomas first developed the idea for Lilies from listening to her grandmother's stories about growing up in post-World War I Liverpool. The Moss sisters are loosely based on her grandmother and her three sisters. Some aspects of the series, such as the grave fund that the girls save for, are taken directly from their lives. Thomas wrote the first complete draft of the script in 1996, but it was almost ten years before it was optioned by the BBC. During that time she lost the script, and had to recreate it from an old copy she found in her attic. Thomas elected to insert certain elements into the script to give the series a sense of realism, such as the slaughter of animals in the Moss home. Largely unknown actors were cast in Lilies, including native Liverpudlian Kerrie Hayes in her acting debut.