Review: Good People

Paul Hopkins and Johanna Nutter (photo credit: lucetg.com)

Southern Comfort

by Rebecca Ugolini

@RebeccaUgolini

Good People aren’t hard to find, but it might be hard to say how they’re forged. In the hard-up neighbourhood of South Boston, a single mother, Margaret (Johanna Nutter), struggles to find work after losing her job. Left with bills to pay and a mentally-handicapped adult daughter to support, Margaret acts on her friend Jean’s advice (Catherine Lemieux) and asks an old flame for help. As the gap which has grown between Mike (Paul Hopkins), who is now a doctor, and Margie becomes apparent, Good People deftly explores issues of social class, economic disparity and personal choices.

Nutter spent some time in South Boston, simply referred to as Southie by its residents, and it shows in her performance. Her accent is spot-on, and her gait and weary mannerisms communicate a femininity that has been worn-down by years of hard work and disappointment. 

Review: August, An Afternoon in the Country

l-r Eleanor Noble, Clare Coulter (photo: lucetg.com)

Family Pictures
by Rebecca Ugolini

In the oppressive August heat, family tensions come to a boil and secrets and scandals rise to the surface. August: an Afternoon in the Country is an unflinching portrayal of one family’s journey across familiar terrain, the well-worn, cyclical conflicts, celebrations and dramas that make up romantic, platonic, and blood relationships. 

The Centaur Theatre’s 2012-2013 opening night presentation of August is also the English-language debut of playwright Jean Marc Dalpé’s acclaimed French-language script, and neither Maureen Labonté’s lively translation nor director Harry Standjofski’s fine cast disappoint.

Audience members will love August for its true-to-life portrayal of the nature of family conflicts: although it’s natural to hope for a resolution to the tragedies portrayed onstage, like a hot summer’s day that eventually loses steam and fades into a humid, black night, August leaves its broken relationships and hurt feelings hanging in the balance, unresolved, hoping for a better tomorrow, but with only the cold and deadness of Autumn on the horizon.

Review: Richard III

Metachroma presents a murderous, mad Richard III

by Rebecca Ugolini

A production of Richard III is an ambitious project to undertake for any theatre company, let alone one presenting its inaugural feature. Metachroma Theatre, a young Montreal-based theatre company whose mandate is to address the lack of visible minorities in Canadian theatre, deftly handles the long and complex Richard III by paying equal respect to the play’s violent, tragic, and humourous themes. 

Jamie Robinson is everything a Richard should be—perfectly hateable and yet irresistible, glib, sly, and as the Acts move on, increasingly terrifying and detestable. Whether he occupies the centre stage or stalks along in the background of a scene, he is the one to watch, and in those mute moments, his freakish, funny facial contortions speak almost as loudly as his acid-laden speeches.

Review: Changing Room

Beyond the stage and into the back
by Rebecca Ugolini

From the moment audience members enter Espace Libre’s performance space for a showing of the Nous Sommes Içi collective’s celebrated piece Changing Room, they know they aren’t in for just another night at the theatre. 

Hostesses are carrying trays of a blue-coloured, sweet-sour shot called Androgyne back and forth from the theatre’s well-stocked bar. Tables and chairs are arranged around the stage mimic a show club set-up, and a red-velvet-curtained stage complete with elaborate runway stands awaiting its performers. As soon as the lights dim and the disco ball starts spinning, Délice (Anne-Marie Coté) a big-haired, foul-mouthed, instantly-lovable drag queen hostess appears on stage and welcomes the audience to a night of cabaret numbers, laughs, and heart-to-hearts. 

Review: The Pillowman

Show logo

The Pillowman is a must-see, must-experience at MainLine theatre

by Rebecca Ugolini

Fairy tales appeal to young ears because they promise adventure and deliver a comforting moral that reaches into everyday life from a land far, far away; in the thrill-seeking stage of adolescence where late nights with friends replace bed-side story-time, urban legends weave the same kind of enchanting, this-worldly-yet-otherworldly weft that lies at the base of all satisfying, if not particularly good, storytelling. 

Whether the tales of Cinderella or the hook-handed killer are plausible or implausible is immaterial to the importance of the story to both the teller and the listener; yet somewhere in the dispiriting world of 9-to-5 jobs and paying bills, we forget that we exist to be moved and thrilled by a really good story. That’s where the MainLine theatre and Lifelong Productions' staging of Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman steps in and jolts us uncomfortably, brilliantly, into remembering that at our core, we love being an audience.

Review: Macbeth

(photo via Facebook)

Macbeth satisfies and stuns at Monument National

It IS a dagger...

by Rebecca Ugolini

Superstition holds that it’s the play whose name dare not be spoken, but the Montreal Shakespeare Theatre Company isn’t afraid to tempt fate. Their production of The Scottish Play is graphic, visually-arresting, and haunting, imbuing the famous play with new energy all the while screaming “Macbeth!”

Audience members sit on the periphery of all four sides of the square stage, either level to the action or watching over the railings of the balcony seating above, like spectators crowding a boxing ring from every angle. Thanks to directing by Aaron George, dynamic fight choreography by Paul DeTourreil, invigorating, dramatic, and almost tribal drumming by producer, percussionist, and set-builder Ace Lopes, and the eerie, cult-like movements of the production’s 12 Weird Sisters choreographed by Amy Blackmore, Montreal Shakespeare Theatre Company’s production of Macbeth feels appropriately frightening, claustrophobic, and mad.

Review: My Pregnant Brother (Zoofest)

The Celebrated Solo...

and her brother...and a phone...

by Rebecca Ugolini

Johanna Nutter’s celebrated solo piece My Pregnant Brother has its roots in the familiar. Standing barefoot before the audience and wielding a piece of chalk, Nutter recounts her nomadic and free-spirited childhood as she traces street names onto the black floor of La Chapelle’s performance space: Boulevard St. Laurent, Avenue Mont-Royal, Avenue du Parc. From those well-worn Montreal streets, My Pregnant Brother sets off to explore territory that is, if not uncharted, then still mostly unknown and misunderstood: transsexual identity, body politics and the dynamics of an unconventional family.

At first glance, My Pregnant Brother is a piece about the difficulty of people who identify as transsexual to find acceptance in their families and to traverse the world of hospital appointments, gender-specific pronouns, and society’s conventions with a sense of normalcy and dignity. As a piece which portrays those struggles with sensitivity and humour, but doesn’t pull any punches, My Pregnant Brother is a triumph.

Review: Phone Whore (Zoofest)

Story Mistress

Cameryn Moore doesn't phone it in

by Rebecca Ugolini

Sit in on the graveyard shift of the phone sex operator beat in Cameryn Moore’s Phone Whore, a one-woman show that has “Larissa” sitting at home in her pyjamas, taking calls, getting sexy, and talking shop. 

Although “Larissa” is a pseudonym, Moore’s own experiences as a phone sex operator inspire the script, contributing to Phone Whore’s earnest and unquestionably real quality. It’s clear why Moore’s clients, as she testified in the Q&A session which followed opening night, keep coming back: Moore is a masterful storyteller, and she transforms seemingly effortlessly from one persona to another as she takes each new call.

Review: Hippolytos (Fringe)

by Rebecca Ugolini

Greek tragedy probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the words “Fringe Festival”, but Oimoi’s production of Euripides’ classic tragedy Hippolytus is anything but traditional. Translators Carina de Klerk and Lynn Kozak’s  modern English version of the play meets with an eclectic soundtrack including electronic music custom-made by Virek (Nick Donaldson), a mini-drag show by Antonio Bavaro’s alter-ego Connie Lingua (as Aphrodite), and rap/spoken-word performance by Lindsay Wilson (as The Chorus). Supported by the play’s cast of seriously talented actors, these modifications are welcome variations on some old themes: lust, shame, and fate.

The Fringe-For-All Top Ten

Rasmussen

Visions of a Fringe-to-Be

Top 10 Highlights of the Fringe for All

by Rebecca Ugolini

Stilts, bunny costumes, burlesque shows, and roller derby: this couldn’t be anything other than the 22nd annual Montreal Fringe Festival. Over 90 artists presented their 2-minute show pitches at the Festival’s preview event Fringe-for-All, but facing such a variety of choices can be intimidating. To preserve your sanity and prevent you from ending up in a bunny costume of your very own by the Festival’s end, here’s The Charlebois Post’s Top 10 Highlights of the Fringe-for-All, an assortment of spots that caught our eye amid many fine and interesting choices.

For show dates and times, check out SHOWS at www.montrealfringe.ca.

Review: The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?

Testing the limits of normalcy and attraction

McGill’s TNC takes on The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?

By Rebecca Ugolini

This month, McGill’s English-department student drama group Tuesday Night Café Theatre continues Montreal’s recent Equus-fuelled trend of plays which push the boundaries of the sexually normative with a staging of Edward Albee’s 2002 play The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?

The story of Martin, a 50-year-old architect whose family is mortified to discover he has fallen in love—and in lust—with a goat, Albee’s script is psychologically complex and morally ambiguous. Although Albee’s rapid-fire dialogue eventually becomes tedious rather than witty, TNC’s cast and crew do an excellent job staging such an ambitious project.