Erotic comedy Home Deliveries digs into the pressure women feel to be perfect
In Catherine Léger’s theatre adaptation of a beloved 1970 Québécois film, two neglected stay-at-home moms begin a series of sexual affairs
Stefania Indelicato (left) and Aurora Chan in Home Deliveries. Photo by Nancy Caldwell
United Players of Vancouver presents Home Deliveries in association with Ruby Slippers Theatre at the Jericho Arts Centre from March 21 to April 13
QUÉBÉCOIS FILMMAKER CLAUDE Fournier’s cult-favourite erotic comedy Deux femmes en or, released in 1970, has a bit of a taboo premise.
Fed up with their husbands who pay them no mind, two neighbouring housewives engage in a series of sexual affairs with the eligible bachelors who visit their homes on a regular basis, be it the mailman, a repairman, or the milkman. Though the women eventually go to trial for adultery, the judge admits to understanding their motives and sympathizes with them by declaring “Vous êtes deux femmes... en or!” (In English: “You are two women… made of gold!”)
Fifty-five years later, the film is as big a hit on the East Coast as ever. And now Québécois playwright and screenwriter Catherine Léger has given Fournier and Marie-José Raymond’s screenplay new life with French theatre and film adaptations of the same name. The film just won the Special Jury Award for Writing at this year’s Sundance Film Festival—and on top of that, Léger is about to premiere an English adaptation of the play called Home Deliveries, translated by Leanna Brodie.
Speaking to Stir by phone before the production comes to the Jericho Arts Centre, Léger notes that Home Deliveries catapults the plotline of Deux femmes en or into the present day while holding true to the sly comedy style that made it popular.
“I think that the storyline is pretty simple, actually, and I think we can relate to it,” she reflects. “But at the same time, in the play and in the movie, we pushed it to the next level. It’s kind of like, what if women started to just have tons of sex with random guys that would visit their houses for random reasons? It’s not the subject matter that you would use in comedy, usually, but then it’s pretty funny, because we’re not supposed to laugh when it’s supposed to be a serious subject matter. So I think it’s pretty enjoyable to go where we’re not supposed to go, and then just have this comedic relief.”
Catherine Léger. Photo by Dominique Lafond
United Players of Vancouver, in association with Ruby Slippers Theatre, will present Home Deliveries from March 21 to April 13. The housewives have a bit more nuance to them in Léger’s adaptation; both find themselves being stay-at-home mothers, with Violet on maternity leave and Florence on sick leave due to her depression. Feeling dissatisfied with married life and abandoned by their husbands, the pair seduce a string of male lovers.
In today’s day and age, though, the milkman is no more—instead, Violet and Florence go after more modern suitors, like a guy from Telus (and a guy from Shaw… and a guy from craigslist).
“In the ’70s, you didn’t need to explain why two women were at home, right? That’s what women were expected to be doing, staying at home and raising the kids,” Léger reflects. “So when I decided to do [this story] in the modern day, I needed to think: Why are women bored? What makes them unsatisfied with their lives? And it was really interesting to think about how, somehow, even though they have more freedom, they still feel like they’re stuck in how they need to live their lives.
“We have this big idea,” she continues, “of like, ‘I need to perform. I need to be happy. I need to make sure I do yoga. I need to make sure I eat well. I need to make healthy snacks for my kids.’ It’s all this pressure that women put on themselves to constantly be a better version of themselves, instead of just enjoying [life] and having fun. So setting it in our day, it became not a critique of the position women have in society, but a critique of how we put pressure on ourselves to be so perfect all the time.”
Léger often addresses relationships and female sexuality in her work. In 2018, she wrote the screenplay for the film Charlotte a du fun (called Slut in a Good Way in English), which is about three teenage girls who get summer jobs so they can be around boys and explore their sexual sides; and in 2014, she penned J’ai perdu mon mari (I lost my husband), a play about a woman who bets her husband away to a barmaid in Capri—and subsequently loses him.
When it comes to Home Deliveries, Léger is continuing those explorations of human connection by embracing topics that are often swept under the table.
“In the relationships, there is some discussion between the couples that I feel is really relatable,” Léger says. “There are some real conversations about some really modern subject matters, like antidepressants and the impact they have on libido and relationships, and how it’s hard to make the right decisions. I also wanted to make this play as funny as possible, because I don’t want it to feel like something moral. I want to openly discuss stuff that we manage and have to deal with in our everyday lives, and then not necessarily have to say, ‘Okay, this is the solution. This is the right way to do it.’ It’s more like, ‘Let’s talk about it. Let’s have fun.’ Then we can think for ourselves.” 
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