Adam Kelly on the Anorak
Playwright Changed Script After Lépine’s Mother Broke Silence.
Adam Kelly, who has done endless research for his play The Anorak since 2002, recently added another scene to the play because of Monique Lépine's actions.
“The most recent thing that has made its way into the play is a scene involving Marc Lépine’s mother. The reason that scene came out was because she finally came out after the Dawson shootings and spoke for the first time since the massacre to the media. She had a lot of things to say and I took what I could from it and developed the play by writing a scene where Lépine gives his mother an early birthday gift before the massacre."
Does Monique Lépine know about this show?
“I imagine she must know about it because for a little while, the French media here got a hold of the fact that I was doing the show, I really went on my first media junket and it was pretty crazy. I did lots of television and radio interviews and newspaper for the French media. I was on the front page of La Presse, which is the biggest publication here in Montreal – the daily.
I don’t think it’s very often that English plays get to the front page of La Presse, so it was a big deal here and she must have seen that. It was everywhere. I was talking about the show quite a lot, so I think she must have caught wind of it. I have not heard from her. She has not contacted me. I have been working on the film version as well. To my knowledge she was not communicating with the people who are making the film either.”
I heard the night of the massacre that Monique Lépine (who is very religious) actually prayed for the mother of the criminal without knoning that it was her own son.
“Yes, that is true; I read it as well.”
You are also a teacher. The shooting in Finland recently involved a video shown on YouTube. Do you think that the Internet has anything to do with the escalation of global campus shootings?
“ I don’t know about the Internet but I would definitely say that television plays a role in how families are being raised these days. Personally, it bothers me – the idea that a lot of families, I know it is stressful and everything, but we rely on television as our babysitters a lot nowadays. Put the kids in front of the TV to calm them down and stuff like that. I grew up in a house, not a big house, mind you, and we had five televisions in our house. Now I really don’t like watching television. In fact, I don’t watch television at all in my own house. I go out and watch hockey and that’s about it. That’s not to say that television is to blame for why this is happening, but it wouldn’t surprise me because of the fact we are watching so much television that it is actually having an effect on how kids are being raised.”
“The Virginia Tech killer made a video confession, and I hadn’t really seen that before. There always seems to be a letter that is an outward appeal very often in school shooting situations. With Marc Lépine, it was a letter. With these recent ones, it was a YouTube video. The Dawson (College) shooter had postings on a website. But there always is a message that goes out and sometimes it is lucid. In the case of Lépine, it was a lucid message. How reliable it is, whether it is sociopathic or not... I think it is, but these are troubled people for sure. It is easy to say they are monsters and put them in a box. But the fact that is happening so much makes me at least want to take a look at it and ask questions why. Why the escalation? I don’t know all of the answers.”
