Review: (Montreal / Theatre) Molly Bloom

(photo by Caroline Laberge)

Flavorless Sin
by Aleksandra Koplik

Molly Bloom is presented by Espace Go and directed by Brigitte Haentjens. The monologue is Molly's stream of thought. Her character (from Ulysses, written by James Joyce) is essentially based on Penelope in Homer's Odyssey. The main difference between Penelope and Molly Bloom is that the latter is not a faithful wife. Anne-Marie Cadieux takes the stage as Mrs Bloom. The scene opens with her laying on a wooden sculpture: a curvy mountain that is shaped like a woman's body. She is wearing a red dress (of course) and Greek-like sandals. In the background, the three walls surrounding her are made up of straw-like light curtains, they projected the different environments that Molly remembered. The ground is covered in golden white sand, almost giving warmth to the room. This was a very nice touch and visually pleasing, however, the gigantic womanly sculpture could have been explored.  I found that the sound effects were very low on the volume.

Review: (Montreal) Une vie pour deux

Evelyne de la Chenelière, Jean-François Casabonne, Violette Chauveau (photo by Caroline Laberge)

The Corpse
by Aleksandra Koplik

Une Vie Pour Deux is a a play about a middle-aged couple, Jean and Simone, who decide to go on vacation to Ireland in the hopes of reviving their relationship. There, Jean finds a dead woman's body washed up on the beach. The whole play itself concentrates on Jean and Simone's growing obsession with the cadaver. They try to imagine who this woman is and why she died. We learn that the deceased woman's name was Mary and that she was pregnant with a married man's child. This of course requires further probing from our leading characters in terms of the moral aspects of the situation, so much so that Mary becomes a stone in their already unstable relationship.

Review: (Montreal) ANA

ANA...THE ETERNAL FEMININE?

Six Annas in search of their mother

By Byron Toben

After the world premiere opening of the wonderful, thought-provoking play ANA at Espace Go, I wisecracked that it should be subtitled Six Annas in Search of their Mother.

Later, reading director Serge Denoncourt's program notes, I was gratified to see that he also paraphrased Pirandello to describe the show. The co-authors, Clare Duffy of Scotland and Pierre Yves Lemieux of Montreal spent three years working up a script based on a concept by Clare Schapiro of Montreal

and Muriel Romanes of Scotland.