In this powerful dramatic monologue, Lorena Gale remembers, by reconstructing for the audience, her childhood and coming of age as an African-Canadian in Montreal.
Her autobiographical protagonist is unabashedly one of those spoil-sport “ethniques” who, for political factions led by the likes of Parizeau, undermined and destroyed the separatist “pur-laine” vision of a new Quebec nation, sparkling and clean in its coat of only three colours—the seamless snow-white of the landscape, the royal blue of the sky, and the golden yellow of the sun (king), all allusions to the symbology of the imperialists who founded this “new nation,” this “new France.”
In a dream-sequence / folksong which is played in ironic fragments between the voices adopted by the actress, Gale lyricizes the long, parallel process of rediscovering her self, first as a dark speck on the horizon where pure white meets pure blue, then finally as a full-grown adult, whose race, gender and class are far more definitive of her person than the vapid dreams of the neo-nationalists of the late 20th century.
Lorena Gale was a Canadian actress, director, and writer. She was active onstage and in films and television since the 1980s. She also authored two award-winning plays, Angélique and Je me souviens.
She appeared in such movies as Fantastic Four, The Chronicles of Riddick, and The Exorcism of Emily Rose. She has guest starred on programs such as The X-Files, Stargate SG-1, Smallville and Kingdom Hospital. Until August 2005, she starred as Priestess Elosha on the SciFi Channel television program Battlestar Galactica.
Her play, Angélique, the story of executed slave Marie-Joseph Angelique, was the winner of the 1995 duMaurier National Playwriting Competition in Canada.
Gale died following a battle with cancer on June 21, 2009, aged 51.