Review: (Montreal / Theatre) Top Girls

Leni Parker (photo by Andrée Lanthier)

Top Girls reaches for gold
You might love or hate Churchill’s feminist play 
Sarah Deshaies
@sarahdeshaies

Guess who’s coming to dinner?

In career girl Marlene’s dream hosting gig, five top, barrier-breaking (but historically overlooked) women come to sup and celebrate. They are toasting Marlene’s promotion at a job placement agency, no mean feat for a woman during Thatcher’s reign in early ‘80s Britain.

There’s Lady Nijo (Leni Parker), a 13th century concubine from imperial Japan who travelled on foot for decades as a Buddhist nun, and Pope Joan (Lauryn Allman), a woman secretly in the top cleric’s job in the 800s. Dull Gret (France Rolland) is a gruff warrior woman, peeled right off of a Brueghel painting. There’s Victorian world traveller Isabella Bird (Julie Tamiko Manning) and Patient Griselda (Lucinda Davis), Chaucer’s obedient yet resolute wife.

The opening act of Caryl Churchill’s play is a dinner party tableau that evokes both Judy Chicago’s famous feminist table and The View’s cacophony of lady voices. Each dinner guest delves into stories about childbirth, fathers, death, lovers - but to illustrate how lonely they may have been in their own times, they chatter over one another at length. As one poignantly reminisces about her child, Isabella wades in: “I never had any children. I was fond of horses.”

The Abominable Showman, April 30, 2014

(photo by Ali Barillaro)

Over The Rainbow

Legendary theatre director Roger Peace teams up with legend-in-the-making Chris Barillaro to recreate Judy Garland’s extraordinary 1961 concert at the Montreal Forum

by Richard Burnett 

@bugsburnett

After America’s national LGBT magazine The Advocate in 1998 called Judy Garland “The Elvis of homosexuals,” openly-gay stand-up comic Bob Smith debated the tragic idols – Elvis the King, and Judy our Queen – in a classic gag:

“Elvis had a drinking problem.”

“Judy could drink Elvis under the table.”

“Elvis gained more weight.”

“Judy lost more weight.”

“Elvis was addicted to painkillers.”

“No pill could stop Judy’s pain!”

For decades, of course, LGBT people used the code phrase “Friend of Dorothy” – inspired from Garland’s portrayal of Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz – to identify one another. Then when Garland died in June 1969, myth has it her death and funeral, held in New York City, fuelled the Stonewall Riots which ignited the modern Gay Liberation movement. In fact, the very first Gay Pride parade was held one year later to commemorate Stonewall, and today LGBT people worldwide link the Gay Liberation movement’s Rainbow Flag (created in 1978 by artist Gilbert Baker) with Garland’s signature song Over the Rainbow.

Sunday Feature: Caitlin Murphy, Dramaturg for Top Girls

The Blood-Letting
When I first told my boyfriend I did dramaturgy, he thought it sounded like surgery for theatre
by Caitlin Murphy

Caitlin Murphy is a writer, director, dramaturg and regular reviewer for The Charlebois Post.  Most recently her play Fruits Unheard Of, about photographer Diane Arbus, was presented in New York City by Working Theatre Artists, and her story "The Perfect Bird" was featured at Urban Tales at the Centaur Theatre.  She has also written and directed four short films, three narrative and one documentary; Flushing Lacan (2010) and TOAST (2011) won the Jury Prize Awards at the Montreal ACTRA Short Film Festival. This summer her play Ladies Room will be presented at the London Ontario Fringe, and her most recent play LOTUS will premiere at the Montreal Fringe.  She will also be associate directing The Book of Judith with Sarah Garton Stanley.

When I first told my boyfriend I did dramaturgy, he thought it sounded like surgery for theatre.  
Not really, I laughed. Or was it?  

Regardless, he hit on an odd truism about the craft for me: I always end up stepping away from it, standing alongside it through analogy in an attempt to explain what it is. Unlike other theatre jobs that I could describe pretty easily head-on, dramaturgy sets me scrambling for similes, usually finding that so many fit. At least a little bit. Being a dramaturg is like being a cheerleader. It's like being a curator. A defence lawyer; a midwife; an ambassador...  Sort of.

Review: (Montreal / Theatre) Glengarry Glen Ross

R.H.Thomson, Brett Watson (Photo by: Andrée Lanthier)

NBC (Never be closing...)
by Aleksandra Koplik

Walking into this play, I had only expected swearing and cursing, the fast-paced and dirty kind. I was not disappointed. Never had I heard of Glengarry Glen Ross, David Mamet or the movie. Shame on me! Having been provided with a program that, very conveniently, offered a short glossary of words to know, I started to understand what it was all about. In this play directed by Paul Flicker, four real estate agents in Chicago will do just about anything to sell expensive, wanted and unwanted property. They will even betray each other.

The Abominable Showman, March 15, 2014

The ensemble cast of Glengarry Glen Ross at Montreal’s Segal Theatre (L to R):  Tristan D. Lalla, Mike Paterson, Brett Watson, Daniel Lillford, R.H. Thomson, Michel Perron and Graham Cuthbertson

Photo credit:  Photo by Richard Burnett

Down but not Out 

CharPo asks the ensemble cast of the Segal Theatre’s new production of Glengarry Glen Ross – a play about desperate salesmen trying to make a living – what they did when their own careers were in the toilet …

by Richard Burnett 

@bugsburnett

Theatre lovers the world over are familiar with David Mamet’s classic 1983 play Glengarry Glen Ross, which won the 1984 Pulitzer Prize and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award in 1984. The hit play was then turned into the 1992 cult film starring Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Alec Baldwin and Alan Arkin.

Glengarry Glen Ross was also last performed in Montreal at the Centaur Theatre in 1986. So the play’s limited-engagement run at the Segal Theatre is welcome, and its cast of seasoned actors shared a few war stories of their own when this week I asked them all what they did when their own careers were also in the toilet. 

Brett Watson, who plays Richard Roma: “When I started out some 20 years ago I auditioned for a role in a film. I’d heard the director was a big reality guy and the character I was audtioning for was supposed to be drinking from a bottle of white wine. I was so desperate to get the part, I thought I’d be bold and do the morning audition with a real bottle of wine. Just to be different. But I had to do the scene over and over. After 15 minutes I had finished the bottle of  wine and left absolutely tanked. I didn’t get the part, but I got a hangover at two in the afternoon.”

Mike Paterson, who plays James Lingk: “I was living with two comedians who didn’t pay their rent or the gas bill. They left and here I was in the huge 7 ½ trying to pay rent. I had to boil all of my baths and I had no money to eat. But one thing I had was a little bit of margarine, ketchup and mustard. So I went to the store with $1.15 and bought a jumbo loaf of white bread and made my first ever ketchup and mustard sandwich. That was my staple for a long time. It was rough, but at the same time it was wonderful because it builds character.”

Review: (Montreal) The Meeting

About MLK and Malcolm…
by Aleksandra Koplik

What if Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X sat down and had a conversation? What would be the outcome or consensus? Written by Jeff Stetson and directed by Quincy Armorer, Black Theatre Workshop presents The Meeting. It’s a play that addresses such timeless issues as racism, poverty and discrimination. 

Fade in. The audience sees a sleeping Malcolm X (Lindsay Owen Pierre), he is awoken by his bodyguard Rashad (Kareem Tristan Alleyne). X’s house has just been bombed and his thirst for change has never been greater. He awakes from a nightmare and almost immediately greets Martin Luther King Jr. (Christian Paul).  We are introduced to two completely different standpoints on racism. The two are different in almost every way possible:

King is Christian. He was a Baptist reverend.

X is Muslim (who knew!?).  He converted from the Nation of Islam to Sunni Islam and became a minister.

King wants to make change through love. He believes there is no hate with love.

X pushes for change through force. He is certain that people don’t understand love, they understand action.

The Abominable Showman, February 20, 2014

What if Dr Martin Luther King and Malcolm X had sat down and had it out? 
Black Theatre Workshop imagines what could have been, in The Meeting …

by Richard Burnett 

@bugsburnett

Their meeting is famous: March 26, 1964, the day the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X shook hands in front of the Washington press corps outside the U.S. Senate Caucus Room on Capitol Hill.

Malcolm – who once called King “Rev. Dr. Chicken-wing” – stepped out of the crowd, blocked Dr. King’s path, extended his hand and smiled.

“Well, Malcolm, good to see you,” King said, shaking Malcolm X’s hand.

That meeting almost 50 years ago lasted only a minute. 

But what if it had lasted an hour?

Review: (Montreal) The Seagull

Lucy Peacock, Diane D'Aquila (photo by Andrée Lanthier)

Hinton's Chekhov's Seagull 
by Caitlin Murphy

In the program for The Segal Centre's production of The Seagull, adapter and director Peter Hinton's name precedes and looms large over playwright Anton Chekhov's. A bold statement reflecting a bold stamp: transplanting the play to a contemporary Canadian context, cross-gendering characters, and playing fast and loose with Chekhov's text. All of which could have gone very very wrong. And didn't. The Segal Centre's first full-length production of a Chekhov play is rich, quirky, vibrant, and deeply satisfying.  

As the evening began, I feared that the winks to Canadian culture – name dropping the likes of Jian Ghomeshi and Christopher Plummer – would quickly wear thin. But soon enough the self-referencing settled down, and Hinton's modern bent felt much more natural and fruitful.

Review: (Montreal) Othello

Andrew Moodie, Amanda Lisman (photo by Andrée Lanthier)

Stabbing at the Air
by Caitlin Murphy

I’ve always loved Othello. It’s always struck me as Shakespeare’s most accessible play somehow. I like the scale of its plot (essentially a disgruntled employee’s sick ploy to get back at his boss) and the depth of its interest in human psychology (essentially how the mind is able to cannibalize itself). 

In the Artistic Producer’s notes for the Segal Centre/Scapegoat Carnivale’s co-production of Othello, we learn that this is only the third time the Segal has done Shakespeare. And though that is indeed surprising, given this is the Segal’s 47th year, perhaps it’s because the quick rehearsal process imposed by main stage productions can only serve Shakespeare ‘too little, not too well’.

Sunday Feature: Interview with Alison Darcy on Scapegoat Carnivale's Othello

(photo by Sabrina Reeves)

Creating her path, one step at a time.  

by David Sklar

Alison Darcy is a  National Theatre School of Canada graduate and the Co- Founder and Co-Artistic Director of Scapegoat Carnivale Theatre. As well as directing, producing, teaching theatre, Ms Darcy has been acting professionally since childhood. Some of her directorial works include Faust and The Heretics of Bohemia (Segal/ Scapegoat), Hyena Subpoena (Catkidd/scapegoat), Medea and Life is a Dream (Centaur/Scapegoat), Things are bad-Ijumpile Lendaba (South Africa's Mopo Productions/Scapegoat), Last Call (scapegoat/NCTF/Uno festival), Real Estate (Centaur), Bash: Latterday plays (Muttertung), The Unknown Citizen (Project Porte Parole), and Burning Cage (Woman Alone). Selected acting credits include roles in Age of Arousal (Centaur), A Doll House (Saidye), Bye Bye Baby (Imago/Centaur), Brahm and the Angel (Geordie), Speak Easy (Sabooge), Bash: Latterday plays (Muttertung), Small Returns (Infinitheatre/November), girls!girls!girls! (Theatro Commanici/FTA), Taking Sides (Centaur), and various film and television productions. She has worked closely with Clyde Henry Productions, the Festival TransAmériques, Blue Metropolis, and South Africa's Mopo Productions. She is a multiple MECCA award winner, as well as recipient of awards from Montreal, Vancouver, and Seattle fringes.

CHARPO: How did your acting career begin?  

DARCY: I started when I was eight. I did a show at the Centaur because my dad (Maurice Podbrey) needed kids in a play and so a bunch of my friends and I took part. Some casting agents saw the show just by chance and wanted me to be in the movie, “The Hotel New Hampshire”. My brother got an actual part and I was a glorified extra. But that started me off and one day I was at school and another casting agent was looking for kids for this movie called, “The Peanut Butter Solution” and they just picked me based on my look, I think, to audition. I got the third lead: they didn’t know I had had any previous experience. They were doing a hunt across Canada. 

I did a few plays but mostly film until about CEGEP when I started getting more interested in theatre and then decided to apply and I got in to NTS (National Theatre School) in 1992. After graduating I took four years off to travel and ended up living in Europe, in London, and finally came back home to start directing. In 2003, I met Joseph Shragge (co-artistic and co-founder) and later Melanie St-Jacques and by 2006 we started Scapegoat Carnivale. In 2007, David Oppenheim and Andreas Apergis came on board and we became the company. Since graduating, I’ve also been teaching classes. I work with various organizations such as Blue Metropolis, Festival TransAmérique and NTS, while all the while promoting anglo-theatre in this city.  

Review: (Montreal) Ain't Misbehavin'

(photo by Andrée Lanthier)

This Joint is Jumpin'
by Élaine Charlebois

If you’re looking for a laid back yet highly entertaining night out at the theatre, Ain’t Misbehavin’ is the show to see. Starring the extraordinarily talented Kim Richardson, this tribute to the works of jazz legend Fats Waller is packed from beginning to end with amazing musicality and humorous banter. In spite of the absence of an actual storyline, each musical number became its own story, effortlessly capturing the mood of the 1930s American jazz scene. 

Review: (Montreal) Sherlock Holmes

Karl Graboshas (l), Jay Baruchel Photo by: Andrée Lanthier   

Not So Elementary
by Caitlin Murphy

Sherlock Holmes adaptations are in ready supply these days. With Guy Ritchie’s frenetic films, the modern-day BBC series, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, and the NYC-set Elementary, featuring Watson as a woman, we seem quite culturally obsessed at the moment with re-imagining Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s iconic sleuth.  Not surprisingly, this populous terrain is hard to stand out in. Though the Segal Centre’s highly-anticipated production is sumptuous and boasts incredible technical prowess, its trail ultimately runs cold.

Set where Sherlock ‘belongs’ – London, end of the 19th century – the play revolves around a proposed controversial ban on opium, the era’s vice of choice, and the mysterious disappearances and murders that result.  The script was written as a Segal Centre commission, by the multi-talented impresario, Greg Kramer, who tragically passed away right as his play went into rehearsal.

Review: (Montreal) Waiting for the Barbarians

Chuma Sopotela (photo credit: Andrée Lanthier)

Grasping "The Other"

JM Coetzee's masterpiece comes to the Segal stage

by Caitlin Murphy

Though we think that we fear our enemies, we actually dream them. They are fictions that we fetishize as they give specific target for our untenably general fears.

This is the paradox that anchors South African born writer and Nobel Prize Winner J.M. Coetzee’s brilliant 1980 novel, Waiting for the Barbarians.  His narrative of imperialism, adapted for the stage by Alexandre Marine, premiered in Cape Town last year, and is currently being presented at the Segal Centre as a co-production with Maurice Podbrey’s South African theatre company, MoPo Cultural Trust.

The Sunday Read: First Person - Anthony Sherwood on Titanic: The Untold Story

Taking On History

There is more to the story than James Cameron's CGI effects

by Anthony Sherwood

I was in Halifax, the city of my birth, in late March of last year giving a talk at the Nova Scotia Community College to the graduating Television Production students. After my talk I was approached by a student who asked if I was coming back to Halifax next year in 2012 to commemorate the 100th Anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. I told the student that I hadn’t planned on coming for the event. The next day I was having coffee with a colleague who informed me that he had heard that there was a black man who had sailed aboard the Titanic. Immediately my curiosity was elevated. I had never heard of a black man aboard the world’s most famous ship. I certainly didn’t see any blacks in the James Cameron film. Who was this black man? Was he travelling third class aboard the Titanic? My colleague couldn’t answer any of these questions. He speculated that it may be just a rumour.

When I returned home the following day, I went on my computer to find some information about this black man who sailed aboard the Titanic and discovered that the story was indeed true. The man’s name was Joseph Laroche who was born in Haiti and came from a very wealthy and powerful Haitian family. Laroche’s uncle was the President of Haiti – President Dessalines Leconte. This information immediately elevated my curiosity even further. You see, my wife was born in Haiti and I had a strong interest in Haitian culture and history. I discovered that Joseph Laroche was sent to Paris, France when he was only 15 years old to study engineering. Laroche obtained his University degree and married a French woman. Despite graduating at the top of his class, Laroche was unable to find any employment as an engineer because of the colour of his skin. Supporting his family became quite difficult. He had a wife and two young girls. His youngest daughter was born with some medical issues and required expensive medication. Joseph decided to go back to Haiti where his influential family could help him find employment as an engineer. Joseph Laroche and his family boarded the Titanic in Cherbourg, France on April 10, 1912.

News: (Montreal) Segal Announces adventurous and audacious 2012-13 season

John Gilbert, Musical director of Guys and Dolls (via: frog)

PAUL’S BABY

Segal Centre Announces It’s 2012 – 13 Season

joel fishbane

“Paul Flicker, this is your baby this year,” said the Segal Centre’s Executive Director, Manon Gauthier at today’s press conference to announce their 2012 – 13 artistic season. Flicker, who took over for former Artistic Director Bryna Wasserman, is the driving force behind this new season – and if it’s a baby then its one that’s going to keep a lot of Montrealers up late at night. With four world premières, three musicals, a Hollywood star, the first lady of Canadian theatre, an  international co-production and a slew of multi-racial shows, the Segal has announced its boldest season in years.

Review: (Montreal) Vigil

Marcel Jeannin and Kim Yaroshevskaya (photo: Andrée Lanthier)

Are you dead yet?
Darkness and Lite at The Segal
by Nanette Soucy

In Morris Panych’s Vigil, at the Segal Centre, in co-production with Théatre du Rideau Vert, we meet Grace, a bed-ridden, silent crone who is besought by a houseguest come to watch over her and tend to her affairs as her life draws to a close.  Kemp has dropped everything to travel a thousand miles to care for the auntie he spent his tortured childhood wishing he were.  Impatient for his host to kick the bucket, he spends the rest of her life unloading the rage and brimstone of his traumatic childhood in the care of an alcoholic father and a mother who desperately wanted a girl. Before Kemp pesters Grace to death, we encounter a dramatic plot twist.

Review: (Montreal) Scientific Americans

Michael Blake (photo credit: Andrée Lanthier)

Mighton by the Numbers

Sidemart at Segal examines issues and offers entertainment

by Chris Lane

We all know that working for the military can take over your life. And that they are always watching you. Or is it the Soviets who are watching you? Scientific Americans, by Canadian playwright John Mighton, presents numerous questions and possible answers in a sharp, witty and multifaceted depiction of a young scientist getting drawn into the harsh world of American military research.

Review: (Montreal) Equus