Prepared to be “swept away” by Centaur Theatre’s 48th season

A rite of spring in the Montreal arts and culture scene took place on March 16, as the Centaur Theatre unveiled the lineup for its 48^th season.

Roy Surette, the Centaur’s artistic and executive director (pictured below), promised the gathered media and Montreal theatrical community members that the Centaur in 2016-2017 will soar to new heights with its six main stage productions and Beyond the Main Stage series, and will guarantee theatergoers will be, as the theme of the 48^th season suggests, be “swept away”.

“This will be an adventure that will transport audiences to an array of diverse worlds where anything is possible, where new ways of thinking and feeling exist,” he said.  “We invite Montrealers to come fly with us, be swept away to new and different realities where treasures of humour, empathy and wisdom abound.”

Centaur Theatre artistic & executive director Roy Surette (right) and communications director Eloi Savoie announce the 2016-2017 line-up

This year’s selection of the six main stage productions will consist of three international hits (one of them a Pulitzer Prize winner) and three successful Canadian productions, in which three of them will have their Quebec English-language premieres, and they are:

“Constellations” (October 4-30), the Broadway and West End hit in which a physicist and a bee keeper fall in love over and over again in so many different ways;

“The Watershed” (November 8 – December 4) by Anna Soutar (who wrote the critically-acclaimed and award-winning docudrama “Seeds”), which deals with a family summer road trip with a very different twist, as they traverse across Canada to Fort McMurray, Alberta in order to investigate the issues that surround the Alberta oil sands, as well as the Experimental Lakes Area of Ontario;

“You Will Remember Me” (March 7 – April 2, 2017) centres around a professor who can remember so many historical facts, but can’t remember what he did the day before. And thanks to a cell phone-obsessed young girl, he manages to call up some repressed memories and heal some old wounds;

“Clybourne Park” (April 4-30, 2017) won the Pulitzer Prize for its spin off of the classic stage drama “A Raisin in the Sun”, which takes place in a certain Chicago neighborhood in 1959, when a Black family buys a house in an all-white neighborhood, and then 50 years later, when a White couple buys the same house in the same area, which has now become an all Black neighborhood;

“Bed and Breakfast” (April 25 – May 21, 2017) is Mark Crawford’s rollicking comedy (in which its two lead actors perform all of the dozens of roles – both male and female -- in the play) about a gay male couple from Toronto who move to a small tourist town and try to turn an old family home into a trendy bed & breakfast.

As well, the Centaur will feature the following offerings as part of its Beyond the Man Stage series: the based-on-a-true-story drama “Chlorine” as the 2016 Brave New Looks selection (October 19-29); the twisted Christmas tradition “Urban Tales” (December 8-17), which will be devoted to the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future; the hottest two weeks in winter, also known as the Wildside Theatre Festival, which will celebrate its 20^th anniversary (January 5 – 15, 2017); and as a special presentation in celebration of Montreal’s 375^th anniversary, the Centaur and Just For Laughs will team up to present a special remounting of the award-winning production of Michel Tremblay’s comedy/drama “Hosanna” (July 6-23, 2017).

Top it off with the Saturday morning children’s series and the Sunday chat-ups and post-show talk back group discussions, and the Centaur Theatre is ready to lift off for its 48^th season that will have Montrealers who enjoy quality theatre be truly swept away.

For more information about the Centaur’s upcoming 2016-2017 season, go to www.centaurtheatre.com, or call 514-288-3161.

(This post originally appeared in the March 26, 2016 edition of the Montreal Times)

Bravo for "Boom"! It's time travel taken to a whole new level

How does one man tell the saga of the first 25 years of the Baby Boomer generation -- in words, pictures and music -- from the point-of-view of three different people, with cameo appearances from about 100 of the most prominent personalities of that era?

Well just ask the multi-talented Rick Miller, as his one-man time capsule stage show "Boom" is amazing audiences during its Montreal run at the Segal Centre for Performing Arts until April 10.

The show, which recently marked its 200th performance since its debut last year, is a whirlwind, multi-media chronicle, in which Miller puts himself into his own time capsule and takes the audience into a fast-paced two-hour historical journey of the people, music, culture and events that shaped this era from the end of World War II to the Apollo 11 moon landing.

There are two things about "Boom" that really stood out for me, and proved that it is not just some predictable historical review that solely relies on archival photos and newsreel film footage. First of all, there's Rick Miller's boundless energy and enthusiasm when he is onstage. His passion for the show and its subject is quite evident, as he deftly recreates the music and voices of the 100 or so personalities that make up this historical mosaic without breaking his rhythm, from Tony Bennett singing "Cold Cold Heart", to an announcer's voice over for a classic TV commercial, to a recreation of Ed Sullivan's January 1959 on-the-spot interview with Fidel Castro in Havana. To put it succinctly, Miller is a human dynamo of a performer, and his passion for this production is quite evident.

The other thing is how Miller utilizes the Ken Burns-type of approach when it comes to telling the story  of the Baby Boomer period between 1945 and 1969 without being overwhelmed by its rather enormous scope. What Miller does is that he tells the story of this period in history through the eyes of three different people in Miller's life -- his father (who was an immigrant from post-war Vienna), his mother (who was born and raised in a small town in southern Ontario), and Lawrence, a blues musician from Chicago -- in which their common denominator is that each of them lived through this period, were affected by these exciting, turbulent events in their own way, and somehow their lives become intertwined with each other. This approach gives a more concise, yet human approach to the narrative, and shows that the Cold War, the Space Race, Beatlemania and Trudeaumania not only impacted the the course of modern history, but the lives of ordinary people who were caught up by all of it, but who not necessarily changed the course of that history.

"Boom" is a vibrant, fascinating example of living history. And Rick Miller is a one-man history book, as he gives the audience a fun, time travelling journey of one of the most important, most tumultuous and most exciting periods in modern history. And if you enjoyed "Boom", I am happy to announce that during the talkback session that followed the opening night performance that I attended, Miller disclosed that there will be two sequels to "Boom" in the works; the first one dealing with the period from 1970 to 1995, and the second covering the years from 1996 to the present. Get ready for more time warping with Rick Miller as your guide.

Groucho Marx: The Comedy of Existence by Lee Siegel (Yale University Press, $35)

I have been a fan of the Marx Brothers since the age of seven. I have seen all of their 13 movies on the big screen, on TV and on DVD countless times (my favorite is still “Duck Soup”).

But I have always been a fan of Groucho … his distinctive nasal voice, his rapid-fire delivery, his trademark moustache, eyebrows and glasses combination, his use of a cigar as a comedy device, and especially his brand of insult humour that he used to deflate and tear down the stuffy establishment that he always looked at with a great deal of disdain (which was usually in the form of his perfect foil Margaret Dumont).

And one of the trickle down effects of being a devoted fan of Groucho, Harpo, Chico (and sometimes Zeppo) was that I read practically every book that was written about them or by them (on that note, I highly recommend Groucho’s 1959 memoir Groucho and Me, Harpo’s 1961 memoir Harpo Speaks! and Simon Louvish’s 1999 collective bio Monkey Business). I thought I knew everything about the Marx Brothers – especially Groucho – and their six decades in show business.

And then Lee Siegel’s newly-released biography Groucho Marx: The Comedy of Existence was added to my expansive Marx Brothers library, and it gave me a whole new perspective on one of my favorite comedians.

Published as part of Yale University Press’ Jewish Lives series, Groucho Marx: The Comedy of Existence delves into Groucho’s background and gives an intelligent, absorbing, analytical look at the factors and aspects of his life that shaped the comic persona that was forever associated with the former Julius Henry Marx.

We find out why Groucho’s film characters were establishment figures who mercilessly mocked that establishment scene he was a part of; we find out why his sardonic approach was almost a statement on the sense of disappointment he had about his father Sam Marx, an Alsatian immigrant who failed in his profession as a tailor; we find out how Groucho blurred the line between his on-screen and off-screen personas (which is exemplified with Groucho’s rather shocking, unabashed approach when he and Richard J. Anobile compiled his 1973 book The Marx Bros. Scarpbook, which Siegel wonderfully dissects); we find out how Groucho, Chico and Harpo developed their separate characters from vaudeville through the movies based on their personal (and sometimes traumatic) experiences while growing up on the Lower East Side of New York City; and we even get an interesting analysis on why Groucho was the ideal nonconformist as seen through his most associated quote “I don’t want to belong to a club that would have me as a member”.

As well, one of the most interesting aspects of this study comes in the book’s final chapter, which deals with how Groucho divested himself of the greasepaint moustache and eyebrows during the 1950s and kept his cigar-smoking, brutally frank wisecracking persona as host of his long-running game/chat show “You Bet Your Life”, which not only prolonged his career, but also made him a major influential figure in comedy that inspired several generations of comics from Lenny Bruce to Woody Allen to George Carlin to Louis C.K. to be directly honest and straightforward with their material, and not be afraid to say what they want to say with that material.

“Comedians from Sacha Baron Cohen … Larry David, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Bill Maher have reclaimed Groucho’s harsh candor and fused his confrontational and his controversial styles,” writes Siegel towards the end of the book. “You can almost feel Groucho’s influence like a brisk wind, both chilling and invigorating, as the general style of confrontation, exposure, and insult alternates between the humorous and the plain, unadulterated expression of spleen.”

Groucho Marx: The Comedy of Existence is a fascinating new appreciation of Groucho Marx, the man and the comedian, and what really lurked behind the moustache, eyebrows, glasses and cigar. His witty, sardonic brand of anarchistic brutally frank verbal comedy was the perfect antidote to what ailed the world throughout his and his brothers’ heyday during the 1930s. And what’s going on these days in the world, which is just as crazy as it was 80 years ago, we are certainly glad that comics like Amy Schumer, Lewis Black, Louis C.K. and Larry David are proudly inheriting Groucho Marx’s comedy legacy for the sake of our sanity.

(This review originally appeared in the March 19, 2016 edition of the Montreal Times)

20 years later, Ezra Soiferman remembers the Forum’s final game in new book

It was exactly 20 years ago this month that a chapter in the illustrious history of the Montreal Canadiens came to a close.

On March 11, 1996, after a home game between the Habs and the Dallas Stars (which Les Canadiens won by a score of 4-1), the Montreal Forum, the venerable hockey shrine that the Canadiens called their home since 1926, closed its doors after 72 years of hosting countless Maroons and Canadiens hockey games, not to mention wrestling and boxing matches, circuses, ice shows, special events and concerts of all kinds.

Montreal documentary filmmaker and photographer Ezra Soiferman was a college graduate at the time, and just so happened to be in attendance at that final game at the Forum. Armed with his camera, Soiferman decided to shoot a photographic chronicle of the Forum’s swan song. However, while most of the media assigned to cover the event opted for the action on the ice between the Habs and the Stars, and the emotional closing ceremonies immediately following the game (including the memorable standing ovation given to Maurice “Rocket” Richard), he decided to photograph the final game at the Forum from the point of view of the employees, the vendors, the action behind the scenes, and the fans in the stands. As Soiferman says, he was “more interested in the building’s soul than the building’s show.”

After he shot more than 250 images of what went on during this sad hockey milestone, they ended up being stored away in his garage. In the spring of 2014, during the Habs’ remarkable playoff run, Soiferman decided to dust off those photos he took at the Forum and after viewing them with a sense of pride and nostalgia, decided to make use of these photos and share them with the public, especially with the 20^th anniversary of that final game just two years away.

The end result was Last Game at the Forum, an attractive 72-page limited edition hardcover book that features 65 of those images he shot during that March 11, 1996 game (in black & white and colour). The book was officially launched last March 11, exactly 20 years to the day that famous final game was played. And to coincide with the book’s release, an exhibition featuring some of the photos from the book was opened at Le Frame Shoppe’s Art Victoria Park exhibition space, which is located in the lobby of 376 Victoria Avenue in Westmount, which runs until March 25.

Looking at Soiferman’s photos that he featured in the book and exhibition certainly brought back a lot of fond memories of the Habs’ glory days at the Forum, especially those countless games I went to during the 70s, 80s and 90s (my first Canadiens game at the Forum was against St. Louis in January of 1970), and seeing the images of the vendors of those famous Forum hot dogs, the “A venir” board outside the building that listed upcoming hockey games and events, those sturdy old red seats, and the always enthusiastic fans (especially those 24 fans who were dressed as each of the Stanley Cups the Habs won), brought me back to those games that I experienced, and Soiferman certainly accomplished his mission of capturing the soul of the old Montreal Forum.

Also, Soiferman added that the response to book has been so overwhelming, that its first print run sold out almost immediately, and a second printing is on its way. And as an extra bonus, he said that if anyone spots themselves in any of the photos he took that are featured in the book or the exhibition, they will receive a free print of the photo in question (personally signed by Soiferman) as a token of his appreciation.

For more information about the book Last Game at the Forum, or about the photo exhibition, go to www.EzSez.com or www.leframeshoppe.com.

Community and the Human Spirit by Dave Flavell (Petra Books, $24)

For many people, the neighborhoods where they grew up and spent their formative lives were not just places to live, but were also a state of mind and an important way of life. This can be said of the three southwestern Montreal communities of Griffintown, Pointe St. Charles and Victoriatown, which was better known as “Goose Village”.

From the 1920s through the 1960s, these three working class Montreal neighborhoods held a special place in the hearts of its former and current residents. They were known for its strategic location near the Lachine Canal, where many heavy industrial companies like Dominion Coal, the Canadian National Railways (CNR), the Darling Brothers Foundry, Stelco, Sherwin Williams Pains and Northern Telecom had their offices and plants located, and where many of its residents found steady employment; it was where such landmarks like St. Ann’s Church and the Victoriatown Boys Club were focal social gathering points; and most important, it was where the idea of a close, tight-knit community was well displayed amongst its hard-working residents, who were mainly of French Canadian, Italian and Irish descent.

Although many of the factories of Pointe St. Charles and Griffintown have been transformed into preppy condos, and Goose Village was expropriated and had all of its buildings demolished by the City of Montreal in 1964, the original sense of community spirit has never left the hearts and minds of its many former residents. And they have been fondly recalled in the book Community and the Human Spirit.

The book is a collection of oral histories by 26 former residents who made either Pointe St. Charles, Griffintown or Goose Village their respective homes where they grew up, played, were educated and found their professional callings. The common thread amongst these highly readable oral accounts was that although they and their families didn’t always have much as their counterparts in such neighborhoods as Westmount, NDG or TMR, the close knit relationships they had with their neighbors, and how they looked after each other in good times or hard times, gave them a sense of richness in their lives that have never left them.

For example, there’s Eddy Nolan, whose love of boxing at the Griffintown Boys’ Club earned him five Golden Glove championships, and later turned his love of sports and community into something good, as he participated in every Terry Fox Run since the beginning, and has raised over $200,000 to combat cancer; there’s former Montreal Fire Department chief Joe Timmons, whose father was a Montreal fireman starting in 1927, and was one of the firemen who fought the tragic fire that was brought about by the crash of an RCAF Liberator bomber in the middle of Griffintown in the spring of 1944, which killed the entire crew of the plane, as well as eight Griffintown residents on the ground; and there was Joe Berlettano, a virtual rock of the Goose Village community during the 50s and 60s, who ran its Boys’ Club at the age of 18 and did so much good for its residents – especially those who were in need – leading up to the Village’s expropriation in 1964.

Coupled with a large selection of rare personal and archival photographs, Community and the Human Spirit is like a fascinating family album of wonderful memories and heartfelt stories of three lost neighborhoods that made up the industrial heart of Montreal for so many decades. And most important, it showed that the heart of Point St. Charles, Griffintown and Goose Village were the people who made their lives there, and showed a genuine care and affection for their hardworking, honest way of life and the people whom they had the privilege to call neighbors and friends.

(This book review originally appeared in the March 5, 2016 edition of the Montreal Times)

One-eyed performer Stephanie Morin-Robert returns to Montreal with courageous solo show “Blindside”

Stephanie Morin-Robert, a Montreal-based dancer, actor, producer and Fringe Festival veteran, has spent the past several months on the West Coast rehearsing and fine-tuning some shows that she plans to perform in the near future. One of them is “Blindside”, an autobiographical solo show that is making a return engagement to Montreal from March 17-19 at the Theatre Sainte-Catherine, located at 264 St. Catherine Street East.

The show, which was first performed more than two years ago at the MainLine Theatre, deals with Stephanie’s ordeal of battling cancer, which cost her an eye and forced her to wear a prosthetic glass eye, and how she struggled with relentless bullying in school as a result; as well, it shows how she overcame it and developed a sense of self-confidence, while she came to terms with her disability.

In a recent phone interview from an artists’ retreat in Bellingham, Washington, Stephanie said that the show’s origins came from the stories she shared about her struggles with her disability during a series of Confabulation storytelling sessions in Montreal. She hammered out a script for the show from these oral stories and first performed them as a straight solo stage show.

“The new version of ‘Blindside’ that I’m bringing to Montreal is no longer just me onstage reciting text,” she said. “There will be a camera and a projection screen where I will look into the camera and tell my story, which will give the audience a better sense of intimacy, as well as some elements of physical comedy, theatre, puppetry and even some stand-up comedy.”

While buoyed by the positive response this new version of “Blindside” has garnered for her (“Many audience members thought it was a vulnerable production filled with generosity, and told me they laughed until they cried … and cried until they laughed,” she admitted), Stephanie plans to take this show on a summer-long tour across Canada – which means she will sacrifice her jobs working the administrative side of both the Montreal Fringe and Just For Laughs festivals – and then take the show on a school tour to help increase awareness with students about bullying, bullying prevention and how to live with a disability.

“By sharing my personal experiences with students, it’s the best way to help people out who are undergoing similar experiences; it’s a huge empowering boost for them,” she said.

Showtime for next weekend’s Montreal engagement of “Blindside” is at 7 p.m., with a matinee at 1 p.m. on March 19. Tickets cost $15 each, and can be purchased at the door, by calling 514-284-3939, or online at www.theatresaintecatherine.com.

(This piece originally appeared in my column in the March 12, 2016 edition of the Montreal Times)

Centaur's "Bus Stops" a wild ride that pulls no stops

Sometimes, the greatest of human tragedies takes place in the most ordinary, every day type of places, such as a city bus. 

And that's the focus of the latest production in the Centaur Theatre's 47th season, the English-language premiere of Theatre I.N.K.’s production of “Bus Stops”, which runs until March 27. 

The play takes place on a city bus with a group of passengers as it goes along its usual route. During this ordinary bus run, a bomb explodes, killing every passenger on the bus. This tragedy is the springboard for the group of passengers to reveal their personal stories that saw themselves end up on the bus in question and the tragedy that was the end result. We learn about their stories of hidden dreams, passion, secret love, rejection and self awareness that are told with a great deal of enthusiasm, heart and a touch of comedy. 

Marilyn Perreault's play works well in translation, and is a deep lesson in human emotions that are bared out in the most common of places; it's a tragicomedy that pulls no stops, and the wild mix of multi-media and a masterfully crafted set by Patrice Charbonneau-Brunelle peels the layers of this human tragedy (not to mention the shell of the bus) into its most bare bones. And the ensemble cast (especially Annie Ranger as Rachel the waitress, who deftly supplies most of the play's comic relief), display how different looking pieces of the puzzle come together so well to provide a complete, unblemished picture of why a tragic event took place.

* * *

Jennifer Roberts (left) and France Rolland in a scene from "Bar Kapra the Squirrel Hunter"

Another interesting theatrical experience comes courtesy of he META Award-winning Scapegoat Carnivale Theatre company's latest production “Bar Kapra the Squirrel Hunter”, which is playing until March 13 at the Studio Jean-Valcourt du Conservatoire, located at 4750 Henri Julien Street.

This play about relationships, forgiveness, loyalty and change focuses on a squirrel hunter named Bar Kapra (Chip Chuipka, who was last seen in the title role of the Centaur's excellent production of "The Butcher" last fall) and his hunting companions Bat Kapra (France Rolland), who bags the squirrel corpses, and Trout, who disposes of the bagged squirrel corpses. Things seem to go fine with this squirrel hunting trio in the deep woods, until Bar and Bat have a disagreement over his method of hunting squirrels. Bar, who worries about killing too many squirrels and therefore not allowing the local squirrel population to repopulate for future hunts, shoots Bat and leaves her for dead. Trout takes Bat to her wooden shack and make sure she heals from her gunshot wound. While that is happening, Trout acts a go-between and tries to heal the rift between the two, so that they can continue on their hunting ways in the deep woods.

This venture into "theatre in the round" works really well, especially the set design by Patrice Charbonneau-Brunelle, which automatically envelopes the audience into the atmosphere of a heavily tree-laden wilderness the moment they walk into the theatre space (especially the essence of pine trees). And the trio that make up the cast work very well, especially the fast-paced repartee dialogue that is almost reminiscent of a classic comedy routine, but with a very dramatic slant to it. Kudos go to veteran Montreal actor Jennifer Roberts, who as the pixie-like Trout, steals the show, as that go-between who tries to be the voice of reason with a great deal of charm and rationality, as she daintily prances around the set delivering her lines without missing a beat.