Review: (Montreal) Moi, Feuerbach

(photo by Matthew Fournier)

Feuerbach, who?

by Aleksandra Koplik

This is a play about the reality of theatre today. Written by Tankred Dorst, a playwright who has not once debated the death of theatre, it discusses the many facets of the stage and those who revolve around it. It felt like I was watching a remake of Waiting for Godot or Rhinoceros, I was waiting for something to happen, but it never did. Instead, it became all about Feuerbach. This very fast paced absurdist-inspired piece, directed by Téo Spychalski, introduces the audience to Feuerbach (played by Gabriel Arcand), a middle-aged actor that appears at an audition after seven years of exile from acting. There, he meets the director’s assistant (played by Alex Bisping) and attempts to educate him on the many roles that he has played and why a person working in theatre should know these works in the first place.

Review: (Montreal) Oxygène

(photo: Matthew Fournier, Corinne Beve)

A Play Without Characters or Dialogue
by Aleksandra Koplik
@SashaVK

Ivan Viripaev's Oxygène (Kislorod) is a piece divided into biblical commandments; discussions that reflect society, politics, culture and the morals of love. These discussions are at times comically developed by two actors on the stage - a woman dressed as a bride (Eve Pressault) and a groom (Eric Robidoux). The audience sits in a white tent, at round tables that seat at least six people. The air is romantic, the centrepieces lovely. When we see the bride and groom, it is understood that you are at a wedding reception. There are no characters, they are simply there to provoke the audience and to encourage their thought process, through body language and repetition (there were certain gestures associated with different words throughout the play). 

Review: (Montreal) La preuve ontologique de mon existence

Into Darkness
by Élaine Charlebois

In the opening scene of La preuve ontologique de mon existence, a piece inspired by the works of great American author Joyce Carol Oates, we find a tormented Shelley (Nora Guerch) trapped in a dingy basement room of a condemned building. Having been put there by her abusive lover and captor Peter V. (Frédéric Lavallée), Shelley has become the object of his manipulation and violence. She is caught up in a twisted feeling of loyalty and fear of Peter, and thus fails to escape her prison. And although her tormentor has decided to marry her off to a creepy stranger named Martin Raven, Shelley remains under Peter’s spell, hypnotized by his rhetoric that her existence is irrelevant and worthless. 

Review: (Montreal) Hypno

Marie-Hélène Gosselin, Martin Tremblay Photo: Marie-Andrée Lemire

Things Hypnosis Won’t Let You Forget.
by Nanette Soucy

In the tiny, low-ceilinged and intimate venue of Théâtre Prospéro, Tsunami Théâtre brings us Hypno, a kind of Ouroborean slapstick farce about a stage hypnotist, his oblivious wife, an obsessed fan seeking help for his gelid wife’s self image problem, and the wacky ways in which the couples intersect.  This compact new work by Simon Boudreau clocks in at a brief but narratively complicated hour without intermission. Lines are quick, snappy, and rhythmic, delivered with a stock comedic cadence that verges on corny, but without eliciting a whole lot of groaning.

Review: (Montreal) Des couteaux dans les poules

Jean-François Casabonne, Stéphane Jacques and Isabelle Roy (Photo credit: Matthew Fournier)

The Mighty Pen
A play on the primacy of words.
by Nanette Soucy

In a room that is hazy and warm, in a timeless dark age of a far-flung Scottish countryside, we meet a young unnamed woman and her labourer husband William. The singular and most immediately striking feature of La Veillée’s primal and sparse Des couteaux dans les poules is the language employed, or perhaps invented by Scottish playwright David Harrower. Elevating the principle of class markers in a speaker’s language to poetry, he shows us the dynamics between William and his wife, their station in the village, the superstition and taboos of their culture, in large part, by the language they use. The first few moments of our time with them reveal volumes about their world. Their exchanges are visceral, and economical. They share a limited vocabulary to express their thoughts and experience, and as per their time and place, William has many more words to draw from than his wife. Their conversation topics are limited. The day’s toil. Their sweetness and lust. The animals. The property. Practical vocabulary lessons for the curious and perceptive girl. When a skittish pregnant filly requires William’s undivided attention, he instructs his wife to take the grain to the miller in his place.

Review: (Montreal) L'Ouest Solitaire

Irish tale of sibling battles transposed for a Québecois audience
The sharp Irish-English playwright is one of the best of his class
by Sarah Deshaies
@sarahdeshaies

Quebec is often accused of being an introspective, navel-gazing culture that examines and celebrates only its own trends and personalities. Whether this is a function of "maître chez-nous" ideals or simple solipsism is not up for debate. 

What is certain is that L'Ouest Solidaire trumps any suggestion that Quebec culture wholly exists on a self-involved plane.