Interview: Rachelle Glait (Les belles soeurs, Yiddish Theatre)

The Life of a Sister
by Anna Fuerstenberg
(Rehearsal shots by Ron Diamond)

Rachelle Glait is currently directing Les Belles Sœurs at the Segal and she graciously consented to be interviewed after casting me as Rose. 

CHARPO: Were you born here?

GLAIT: Yes. We lived on Clark Street. My parents survived the war in the Soviet 

Union and my father was attacked in the  notorious postwar pogrom in 

Kielce, Poland. They thought he was dead and they had put him on a cart with

bodies on it, and then a doctor found him still breathing.  My mother had already 

given him up for dead. My mother survived in Uzbekistan.

 

CHARPO: What did your dad do?

GLAIT: He was a foreman at a children’s wear factory. He thought that way

 I would always have clothes to wear. 

CHARPO: This is what is known as weird Jewish geography. My mother was 

from Radom, near Kielce, and she was on her way home when she met the people running away from the Kielce pogrom. She also survived with my older brother in Uzbekistan and Kirgizstan. 

How did you begin acting?

GLAIT: I had been playing with costumes and roles from childhood, I even

wrote to Disney asking for a part in a movie. I tried ballet and tap for a year, but I wasn’t cut out to be a dancer.  

Review: Harlem Duet

Photo Credit: Rodolfo Moraga and François Dupraz

Othello's Cast-off

by Anna Fuerstenberg

Harlem Duet is a wonderful piece written by a master playwright,and deftly directed by Mike Payette. Lucinda Davis gives a terrific performance, she has grown into a strong and subtle artist who can make you laugh and then wrench your heart. Nothing compares to the weft and woof of this complexly woven drama. From the proposition of a black woman who must have been abandoned by (the traditional) Othello, the play posits a mythopoetic tale interweaving the speeches of Martin Luther King, Maya Angelou, and Malcolm X with the stories of slaves who plan to escape to Canada, a house that is passed from a rich Dutch New Yorker to a black slave, and a father-daughter reconciliation which is heart breaking. 

Review: Elizabeth Rex

Enter The Queen

Tableau d'Hote conquers the heat

by Anna Fuerstenberg

Last night’s performance of Elizabeth Rex was a kind of coming of age for Montreal Theatre. It is a fantastic script, written by the inimitable Timothy Findley, and directed with tremendous grace and extraordinary intelligence by two of this city’s finest directors. Mike Payette and Liz Valdez created a work that is wonderful for any audience, and has an added layer of insights for the lover of Shakespeare’s canon.

The imaginative story pits Elizabeth the first, brilliantly performed by Leni Parker against William Shakespeare, delightfully portrayed by Arthur Holden, and his leading man/lady, Ned. Brett Watson as Ned gave a tour de force performance that left the audience breathless and is worth crawling through the unbearable heat to witness.  The repartee is brilliant and the tension as they await the execution of the Earl of Essex thrilling. 

First-Person: Anna Fuerstenberg on Triplecross

FEAR AND LOATHING AT THE MONTREAL FRINGE

Triplecross comes to the party

by Anna Fuerstenberg

Why would anyone want to direct a play at the Montreal Fringe, let alone a play one had written, and (yikes) at my age? I have directed in Latin America, in Toronto, in Colorado, in Nashville Tennessee and even at the Centaur. So what in the world am I doing with a brand new theatre company in the Fringe? It means starting all over again and investing money that I can ill afford, and yet…There are two other women playwrights who are self-producing this year. Perhaps it is a trend?  Maybe I just miss directing, TRIPLECROSS is a farce, definitely Fringe material.

Overview: The 2010 Theatre Season

by Anna Fuerstenberg (Theatre Critic for Rover: Montreal Arts Uncovered)

I confess that I was away in Ecuador for two months and missed some terrific plays in the 2010 season. Yet even a cursory glance at some of the plays I did get to see and/or review warms the cockles of my weak heart.

I missed The Mid Life Crisis of Dionysus, and I can only hope that some day it will be re-mounted.

There was a great joy in seeing A Line In the Sand at the Segal Studio and Tableau d’Hote inspired me with their professionalism, the directing was really superb and the acting was extraordinary.

I liked Anderson’s Inkwell and my seven year old companion was enchanted.

Mission Drive seemed to need a few more drafts and a public reading or two.