Review: Depflies 3 - Toé pis moé

DePFLIES 3… MOÉ PIS TOÉ (Me and You) 
By Byron Toben

Episode 3 of Alain Mercieca's “farcical satire” vehicle depicting various themes as portrayed by the hangers-on of a dépanneur in an economically depressed Montreal area has arrived. In reviewing episode one (notions of family), I dubbed Mercieca “the Chekhov of St. Henri” with moments of Seinfeld. I am gratified to see that that reference now highlights the postcard flyer for the current show.

Some friends have queried why the Chekhovian reference? I suppose the main reason is the non-judgmental depiction of the characters. With all their foibles, a certain humanity persists. Also, Chekhov's own feeling that his plays were amusing satirical farces before Stanislavski transformed them into classic works of great Art.

Review: 42nd Street

SEE THOSE DANCING FEET...

...on 42nd STREET!

By Byron Toben

What a wonderful show this is! The Hudson Music Club, which staged the  highly regarded The Drowsy Chaperone last year, has topped that with their rendition of this multiple award winning Broadway classic.

42nd Street originally began as a film gamble by Warner Brothers in 1933. Financially troubled despite their success as a film noir producer, they hired away Busby Berkely from MGM to produce some of the most kaleidoscopic over the top dance numbers for this backstage drama of Broadway musical types. Canadian born Ruby Keeler, recently married to Al Jolson, was hired to play Peggy Sawyer, a naïve chorus hopeful, who becomes a star. Ginger Rogers played Anytime Annie, a wisecracking chorine who befriends Peggy and the then newbie tenor, Dick Powell played Billy Lawlor, the male tenor.

Review: Oklahoma!

 

Landmark “OKLAHOMA” Still Resonates

Students give a Beautiful Evening

By Byron Toben

Is there a more rousing song in American musical theatre than the title refrain of the seminal Rogers and Hammerstein classic “Oklahoma”? At the conclusion of its opening at the John Abbott Casgrain Theatre, many of the audience (including a sizable number of Francophones) were heard humming and mouthing the waving wheat that sure smells sweet when the wind comes right behind the rain.

News: QDF Spring Calendar Launch

Cast and director, The Leisure Society

Musical Shows Aplenty at QDF Spring Calendar Launch

By Byron Toben

Friedrich Nietzsche quipped that “Without music, life would be a mistake”. Had he been channeled to the 8th quarterly Quebec Drama Festival Calendar Launch at the Rialto last night, he would have been in a quandary. The 18 forthcoming local productions showcased featured 7 that were musical, no mistake, but the famous woman-hating philosopher would have had to observe that dozens of  talented ladies that made up the bulk of the ensembles. 

Anyway, this is all hypothetical because God has announced that “Nietzsche is dead.”

Review: A History of the Devil

01

The History of the Devil a Trial-ing Experience
by Byron Toben

Clive Barker is a sort of adulte terrible in story weaving circles. A multi-disciplined  myth-maker - plays, novels, films, paintings - he has engendered tons of controversy. Director Jeremy Michael Segal has proven himself as a sort of enfant terrible by assembling 10 young and talented actors (many, like himself, recent grads of  the Dawson theatre program) to portray 31 characters in this cluttered work. Lucas Chartier-Dessert is particularly impressive as the devil himself. The other 9 switch between 30 roles, some fictitious people, some mythological characters, some historical.

Review: C!rca

The spectacle of C!rca

A THEATRICALLY EXCITING WORDLESS SHOW

C!RCA moves in ToHu 

By Byron Toben

This is not an English- (or any language-) speaking show and is also not a Montreal based company (it is from Australia). So, it is not strictly a candidate for CharPo's motto… "All Montreal English Language Theatre..all the time". Still, it is so good that, to quote Arthur Miller, “Attention, attention must be paid”.

This heralded Brisbane company has travelled the world, amazing audiences with their focused body control as they blend acrobatics with modern dance. As a dancer, I am your original two left feet guy, but, as Harry Truman once remarked. "I may not lay any eggs, but I am a better judge of an omelet than

any hen in the state of Missouri".

Review: Depflies 2

The Night of the Living Losers II

Depflies again

by Byron Toben

The lovable losers of DEPFLIES 1 are back in Frappe les rues - part of a projected 13 part live bilingual soap opera about St. Henri denizens who hang out at a local Depanneur. In this installment, a star is born! The star is writer/director/actor Alain Mercieca's 7 year old daughter, Adele. The cast breaks W.C. Fields's famous warning to “Never work with children or animals” two fold...there is also a rodent in the plot...and gets away with it.

Mercieca plays Peter who works, sort of, at his half sister's Depanneur. His friend Roger, is a frequent  hanger-on in the dep as they discuss issues both mundane and existential. Brecht discussed “What is a Man?” but in loftier theatrical terms than the Franglais quips here.

Review: The Hazards of Love

The Hazards of Musicals

A team at McGill Players meets a challenge

by Byron Toben

First off, in musical song, I'm your basic Berlin-Gershwin-Porter-Weill kinda guy. I had not even heard of The Decemberists, an indie-folk group which surfaced around 2001. So I was a blank slate when I went to see The Hazards of Love, one of their titles, around which McGill students Charles Harries and James Hugh Keenan Campbell have constructed a folk opera.

Review: Three Sisters

Mara Lazaris, Kayleigh Choiniere, Chantale Demole as the sisters (Photo credit: Hombeline Dumas) 

CHEKHOV'S MIX OF SADNESS AND HUMOUR STILL APPEALS

Someone takes on Chekhov...finally!

By Byron Toben

The Dawson theatre program strikes again with a classic revisited. After staging Shakespeare's “Merchant of Venice” last November, it has now mounted a fine “Three Sisters” by Chekhov. These classics still resonate with us despite the distance of place and phrase. That's  why they are called classics (it also helps no royalties need be paid).

Review: Depflies

The strange and wondrous world of convenience

Dépflies Inaugurates a Serial Comedy

By Byron Toben

Welcome to the wonderful world of Dépflies.

A dép fly is one who hangs out at the local depanneur, something like the more well known bar fly. Depflies, which had a 3 day run Jan 12-14, is the opening salvo of a projected monthly serial involving the talented improv souls oft seen at Alain Mercieca's Theatre Ste. Catherine. While the feeling of episode one was improvisational, it was scripted by Mr. Mercieca, who also stars. This bilingual show did not need perfect command of both languages to understand the plot or jokes.

Review: Teaching Hamlet (Wildside)

l-r Watson, Cutler

A Lesson on Fixations

Shakespeare simply reveals the actor's lot

By Byron Toben

Keir Cutler, the author/performer of eight widely performed monologues, strikes again, this time with a duologue, “Teaching Hamlet”. This wildly amusing show - aided and abetted with the appearance of Brett Watson and the directoral hand of Paul Hopkins - makes a fine book end to Cutler's “Teaching” series.

News: QDF Winter Calendar Launch

Kirsten Rasmussen in blink, blink, blink

It Is The Very Model Of a Modern Major Winter Launch

By Byron Toben

Just as the Charlebois Post has become the “go to” blog for Montreal area English theatre (and in just one year!), so has the Quebec Drama Federation’s quarterly Theatre Calendar, become the indispensable handy printed guide to local theatre-goers. Started some years ago by former QDF head Elise Menard, it has blossomed under current director Jane Needles. In addition, she has instituted party-like launches where - shades of  Fringe for All - some companies in the forthcoming quarter can strut their stuff with

short excerpts.

Review: Four Minutes If You Bleed

l-r Alex Haber, K.C. Combs, Paula Costain, Amelia Sargisson, Paula Jean Hixson

(Photo credit: Daniel Francis Haber)

Four Minutes If You Bleed, or…

Puck without the Shakespeare

By Byron Toben 

This laugh-a-minute seasonal play is tailored for a Montreal audience. Christmas and hockey sounds like a can't miss proposition. And the delivery of the product, by local playwrights Ned Cox and Alexandria Haber is great fun to watch.

Review: ANA

ANA...THE ETERNAL FEMININE?

Six Annas in search of their mother

By Byron Toben

After the world premiere opening of the wonderful, thought-provoking play ANA at Espace Go, I wisecracked that it should be subtitled Six Annas in Search of their Mother.

Later, reading director Serge Denoncourt's program notes, I was gratified to see that he also paraphrased Pirandello to describe the show. The co-authors, Clare Duffy of Scotland and Pierre Yves Lemieux of Montreal spent three years working up a script based on a concept by Clare Schapiro of Montreal

and Muriel Romanes of Scotland.

Review: The Merchant of Venice

(Photo credit: E. Julee)

Still Relevant

Dawson explores the dangerous waters of ...Venice

By Byron Toben

First off, congrats to director Jude Beny who had to take over The Merchant of Venice late in the game from 87 year old  Dawson icon Victor Knight. The snazzy production kept Shakespeare's classic moving right along. 

Review: The Play's the Thing

Paul Hopkins (l) and James Kidnie

(photo: Andrée Lanthier

This Play Is Indeed The Very Thing

Broadway production values at Segal

By Byron Toben

The Play's The Thing provides a humorous antidote to the Segal Centre's last show, the gripping but intense Equus.

In the early years of the 20th century, Ferenc Molnar reigned supreme among Continental European playwrights as did Ibsen in Norway, Chekov in Russia and Shaw in England. He wrote some 40 plays, became rich and lived high on the hog until encroaching Nazism forced this witty Jewish Hungarian  writer to flee to New York, where the movie version of his play The Swan starred Grace Kelly and Carousel, the musical version of his play Liliom, became a stage and cinema hit.

Review: Far From The Madding Crowd

Lea Berry, Lucas Chartier-Dessert and Jeremy Segal  (photo credit: Rebecca Croll)

CLOSE TO THE MADDING CROWD

The energetic actors are a tribute to the theatre programs at Dawson and John Abbott...

By Byron Toben

Far From the Madding Crowd, a wonderful theatrical version of Thomas Hardy's classic novel, is made truly intimate by the clever staging of this play. Thirteen actors playing twenty one roles in nineteenth century costume emote, sing and dance before - and throng through - the audience, reciting the heightened Victorian language of the day.

Review: Obsession: Tales From Edgar Allan Poe

A Journey Into a Troubled Soul
Death delivered in time for the Samhain and to perfection
By Byron Toben

“Lord save my troubled soul!” exclaimed Edgar Allan Poe as he died in a delirium on October 7, 1849. On a rainy, windy Friday 162 years (and one week) later, three of his most disturbing first-person narrated stories chillingly opened for a brief theatrical run at the intimate Freestanding Room.

Review: True Nature

Review: Chi of Shaolin Tale of the Dragon

(Photo credit: Lucetg.com)