In the Eyes of Stone Dogs

Daniel Danis’s homage to Aeschylus, the “father of tragedy,” is set on an imaginary island in the St. Lawrence River. The eccentric islanders are about to join in the outdoor “Rages” staged by the trickster Coyote—wild Bacchanalia where the participants, under the influence of his potions, lose all vestiges of their civility and abandon themselves to the elemental forces of life and death.

Under the ever-present eyes of a chorus of dogs, the play opens with Djoukie, holding a series of number eights, symbols of eternity, changing the price at her mother’s Gaz-O-Tee-Pee. Determined to escape this “real junkpile for a bunch of mental cases,” Djouke wants only to discover the mystery of her paternity before she leaves. But she is unprepared for what she is about to discover: that the day brings on the night, and that all humans are trapped at the heart of this eternal quarrel.

Le Langue-à-Langue des chiens de roche was the winner of the 2002 Governor General’s Award for French Drama.