The Question... Andrew Cameron on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Stoppard on The Fall
by Estelle Rosen

Andrew Cameron was born in North Vancouver, moved to Montreal four years ago to study English Literature at Concordia. He promptly dropped out to pursue a life in the theatre. He has acted in Fringe plays, worked with McGill Players and Tuesday Night Café Theatre, Kingbaby Theatre in British Columbia and most recently founded Chocolate Moose Theatre Company producing Edward Albee's At Home at the Zoo and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.

CHARPO: What was the attraction to present Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, the story, or Tom Stoppard or both; what would you like audiences to take away from this play? 

CAMERON: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are dead appealed to me initially as a very unique comedy. I love the way it turns Hamlet on its head, fully develops all of the bizarre plot points and the great comedy that comes from following these two minor characters through Shakespeare's masterpiece. (cont'd)

The Question... Jeff Gandell on The Balding and As The Bagel Turns

Vulnerable (and Funny)
by Estelle Rosen

Jeff Gandell is a Montreal writer, storyteller, improviser, and teacher. His one-man comedy, The Balding, was nominated for the Just for Laughs - Best Comedy at the 2013 Montreal Fringe Fest. His second one-man comedy of 2013, Danger Unit, debuted to great acclaim at the 2013 Solos Festival. He runs Yarn, a monthly comedic storytelling event at Le Cagibi, in Montreal. 

CHARPO: Your response - in the June 17 edition of CharPo when The Balding was performed as part of Montreal Fringe - focused on balding and life lessons among other things. Any additional insights from this production since then? 

GANDELL: Many! I suppose the biggest (and nicest) surprise since then was the reaction that The Balding received from audiences and critics during the run at the Fringe Fest. I’m happy to report that the show was a great success, both in terms of attendance and feedback I got from people. In telling the story of a 20-year-old virgin starting to lose his hair, I really aimed to write something that would resonate emotionally with people, and I think I did that. I had a feeling before the Fringe Fest that it was a story of vulnerability. I don’t think I really understood to what degree it was, or how much people would latch on to that. 

Sunday Feature: Deepali Lindblom on Wake, Butterfly

Thirteen Blocks

by Deepali Lindblom

Deepali Productions was founded in 2010 with the goal to create dance and theatre productions that enlighten, while being entertaining. Since then, Deepali, the company founder, has taught Indian dances to more than 5000 people and given numerous performances including at Just for Laughs, Opéra de Montréal, and Place­ des­ Arts. In 2012, in collaboration with MainLine Theatre, Deepali Productions created its first comedy dance/theatre, Poutine Masala. It was an instant hit and completely sold out. Last year it was chosen to be part of the WildSide Festival at Centaur Theatre. This year, Deepali Productions is presenting Wake, Butterfly at Infinitheatre Jan. 23 - 25.

Bombay. Bustling, busy, bursting. A teenager hurriedly walks down the narrow streets of Kamathipura, India’s biggest red light district. 
1 block gone, 12 more to go...

She squirms inwardly as men make lewd remarks and call her names. Yesterday her friend had come along, filled with fire to volunteer, but today she refused. She said she didn't have the nerve to walk down 13 blocks to Aasha (Hindi for hope), an organization that worked towards education, health and betterment of the sex-workers of Kamathipura.
2 blocks gone, 11 more to go...

Review: (Toronto) You Should Have Stayed Home: A #G20 Romp (Touring to: Montreal, Ottawa)

When You're Not So Lucky
A vital story to hear
by Gregory Bunker

Toronto’s downtown G20 meeting in 2010 was insanity: all of a sudden the city became foreign, and news feeds made sure flaming police cruisers and black bloc vandalism were the most memorable moments for those who weren’t there. Few have heard a first-hand account of the largest violation of civil liberties in Canadian history. Abuse and arrests were indiscriminately dished out to peaceful protesters, passersby, even tourists. I was also unwittingly caught up in it, and I was lucky to get out. Tommy Taylor, the playwright and sole performer, was not so lucky.

What makes Praxis Theatre and The Original Norwegian’s You Should Have Stayed Home a vital story to hear is the detail, the honesty, and the loss of naïveté – not just Taylor’s but Canadians’ in general - about corrupted power structures. What makes it touching is that Taylor handled the ordeal just as you or I might have. Why couldn’t he just get a break?, you keep asking yourself. He was nice. He did as he was told. This is Canada and police can’t just arrest you without reason, and they certainly can’t get away with it. But Taylor was let down, of course. And still, he is too nice about it. (And so are we, the public, but this is his show.)

Review: (Montreal) Release

The Sex of Strangers
Cameryn Moore introduces you to people she knows
by Caitlin Murphy

Our feelings about sexuality can have a torturous range:  shame, vulnerability, dread, uncertainty… and that’s with our clothes still on! 

In Cameryn Moore’s latest piece, Release, she presents a patchwork quilt of characters contending with the vulnerabilities of sexual identity.  The result: a moving and intimate piece about the trials of intimacy.

After a bit of a drawn-out, sleepy opening, Release launches into six monologues, from an array of characters of different genders and sexual orientations, all seeking or discovering some form of release.  A shy lesbian from the mid-west waits for her more brazen lover outside a sex shop in NYC; a drunken, middle-aged woman soaks up the liberating energies of Mardi Gras; a man transitioning to a woman seeks solace in a random conversation with a stranger; a ‘big girl’ recounts losing her virginity to an older man with a fat fetish.

First-Person: Stéfan Cédilot on Poutine Masala

(Photo credit: Louis Longpré)

On collaborations, handling the spice and writing a Bollywood play à la Québécoise called Poutine Masala 

by Stéfan Cédilot

Deepali Lindblom walked up to me one evening last autumn, after one of my performances of All I Want is U2 at MainLine Theatre, introduced herself, said she was a dancer/choreographer, that she had liked the show, and that she would be interested in working with me on a future project. No further explanation. No attempt to sell the project to me. She simply asked for my email address and said she would contact me. 

Next thing I know, a few days later, I’m sitting in MainLine artistic director Jeremy Hechtman’s office with Deepali, and they’re telling me that they are going to produce a Bollywood play and that they want me to write it.

“Sure. No problem. I can do that.”

Wait. Rewind. What did I just say? What just happened? This conversation can’t be happening: 

Review: (Montreal) Phone Whore

Into the Electronic Brothel...
...eyes wide open...
by Gaëtan L. Charlebois

The way I have covered the Montreal Fringe is to split the venues up among reviewers; each has to cover everything, for good or ill, at their venue. So I did not get to see one of the hot tickets of last year's edition, Cameryn Moore's solo Slut (r)Evolution. Nor have I seen Phone Whore (which toured - and will be touring - the North American Fringe circuit). When I mentioned into Twitter that PW was coming here this week, the Twittersphere ignited and I was told (nay: ordered) to see it.