Photo by Danny Girouard-Taillon
When is a role not a role?
by Élaine Charlebois
In Le dernier rôle, writer, performer, director Mohsen El Gharbi plays an actor preparing for a role that will make or break his career; a role that no one else is willing to undertake. He is asked to play a mass murderer named Mark Taylor who was responsible for killing 17 female students from Anchorage Institute of Technology in Alaska.
Drawing on the tragic shooting of 14 women that occurred at l’École polytechnique here in Montreal on December 6, 1989, El Gharbi explores the grim process that takes place in transforming an everyday man into a cruel assassin. Having subjected himself to 18 months of brutal research on the subject of serial murder, the actor successfully brings out the feelings of torment and fear that his character must experience in order to become murderer Mark Taylor.
