According to the 19th-century historian Michelet, “Les fées” were women who would rather sing than pray. For this crime, they were punished by being imprisoned in containers that would be opened only at the end of time. In Les fées ont soif (The Fairies Are Thirsty) Denise Bocher takes this image and focuses on it. The Fairies Are Thirsty is a daring, passionate and poetic exploration of the role of women through all time. In the play, three women—a housewife, a whore and the Virgin Mary—fight to break out of the stereotyped roles in which they have been imprisoned for centuries. At the end of the play they stand alone, “before themselves,” “renewed,” and ask the audience to imagine a world in which such stereotypes do not exist.

Denise Boucher
Born in 1935, Denise Boucher has written many plays dealing with feminist issues including The Fairies Are Thirsty (1982). She lives and continues to write in Montreal.

Alan Brown

Denise Boucher's profile page

Alan Brown has written over 30 books on Christianity and Religious Education and edits a journal of the teaching of world religions.

Alan Brown's profile page

“A powerful script and an important play.”
— Montreal Gazette