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Best Montreal theatre of 2018 included old classics deliriously retold

The year brought us memorable reinventions of Kafka, Dostoyevsky, Ibsen and Chekhov, as well as some unexpected sources of fun.

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It was an especially good year for Montreal’s two major anglo theatres, with the Segal’s production of the moving sci-fi drama Marjorie Prime and Centaur’s post-apocalyptic love triangle The Children almost joining other productions from these venues in my 10-best list.

Over at MainLine, there was the première of Oren Safdie’s brilliantly acted, bracingly un-PC coming-of-age play Gratitude, and Brave New Productions was characteristically full of heart with Martin Sherman’s intergenerational gay love story Gently Down the Stream.

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Standouts from the incredibly busy francophone scene included a pin-sharp production of Pinter’s Betrayal at Théâtre du Rideau Vert, the unexpectedly but irresistibly funny story of a girl with terminal illness in Béa at La Licorne, and an intense, stripped-down production of Kevin Loring’s post-residential schools drama Where the Blood Mixes, co-produced by Teesri Duniya at Théâtre Denise-Pelletier. Another tale from the reserve, Cliff Cardinal’s impressively shape-shifting Huff, was one anglo show that ventured into a francophone theatre (La Licorne), while The Assembly, Porte Parole’s verbatim portrait of a fracturing society, was another at Espace Go.

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The city’s wealth of arts festivals also provided some gems. My favourites from the Montreal Clown Festival at MainLine included the touching Steinbeck spoof Of Mice and Morro and Jasp, and the precise physical comedy of three nightmarish nannies in Le Ciel Rue. Meanwhile, a highlight of the Montreal Cirque Festival was the two-man locker room comedy Un Poyo Rojo at Centaur.

There were many class acts passing through Montreal this year, including, at the Segal, Obsidian Theatre’s Shaw Festival hit “Master Harold” … and the Boys, and Tovah Feldshuh’s portrayal of Prime Minister Meir in Golda’s Balcony; Ronnie Burkett’s madcap puppet cabaret The Daisy Theatre at Centaur; and an ice-cool solo performance from original Wallander actor Krister Henriksson in Doktor Glas at Place des Arts.

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As always, one tiny corner of Montreal where you’re guaranteed first-rate comedy theatre was Montreal Improv, whose wonderful movie-critic spoof Films in Focus proved one of the funniest shows in town.

Paul Van Dyck, left, Robert Leveroos, Alexandra Petrachuk and Alison Darcy served up a delicious feast of object theatre in Scapegoat Carnivale's Sapientia.
Paul Van Dyck, left, Robert Leveroos, Alexandra Petrachuk and Alison Darcy served up a delicious feast of object theatre in Scapegoat Carnivale’s Sapientia. Photo by Scapegoat Carnivale

Sapientia (MainLine Theatre)

Who would have thought a religiously didactic medieval play written by a German nun named Hroswitha of Gandersheim could have been so much fun? Scapegoat Carnivale’s Sapientia, about a woman martyring her three daughters to a bloodthirsty Roman emperor, served up a delicious feast of object theatre, with characters being performed by household implements and foodstuffs. This unexpected hit is being revived at Centaur’s Wildside Festival in January. 

Choir Boy (Centaur Theatre)

For his Centaur debut proper (he guested there with a reprise of his excellent production of Hosanna), director Mike Payette chose this sharp, music-driven drama set in a Chicago prep school for boys, written by Tarell Alvin McCraney, the playwright behind the Oscar-winning Moonlight. Like that film, Choir Boy’s exploration of gay sexuality in an African-American context balanced lush visual and verbal poetry with yearning pain, though with more humour this time. Payette’s production was bold, confident and boasted superb performances and soaring a cappella songs expertly arranged by Floydd Ricketts. 

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Choir Boy balanced lush visual and verbal poetry with humour and yearning pain at Centaur Theatre.
Choir Boy balanced lush visual and verbal poetry with humour and yearning pain at Centaur Theatre. Photo by Allen McInnis /Montreal Gazette

Successions (Centaur Theatre)

Centaur also scored with this new play from Michaela Di Cesare about two Italian-Canadian brothers squabbling over the legacy of their recently deceased parents. Di Cesare’s dialogue beautifully captured the sometimes affectionate, sometimes hostile chest-bumping banter between the two mismatched brothers, as well as giving their wives plenty of space to stake out their own dramatic territory. Tamara Brown’s production featured a superb quartet of performances from Davide Chiazzese, Carlo Mestroni, Gita Miller and Tara Nicodemo.

Gustavo Vaz, left, and Armando Babaioff slugged it out in Tom na Fazenda.
Gustavo Vaz, left, and Armando Babaioff slugged it out in Tom na Fazenda. Photo by Ana Claudia

Tom na Fazenda (Festival TransAmériques)

There were some characteristically spectacular productions at this year’s FTA, notably Ivo van Hove’s Shakespearean compendium Kings of War and the dance-theatre piece Betroffenheit from Vancouver-based company Kidd Pivot (who return next year with Revisor). But soaring above even those terrific shows was Rodrigo Portella’s production of Michel Marc Bouchard’s Tom à la ferme — all mud, blood, sputum and murderous passion as the play’s clash between rural Quebec and metrosexual Montreal was transposed to a Brazilian setting.

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Alexander LaBlond starred in the Fringe favourite Kafka's Metamorphosis.
Alexander LaBlond starred in the Fringe favourite Kafka’s Metamorphosis. Photo by Karel Blakele

Kafka’s Metamorphosis: The Many-Legged Musical! (Montreal Fringe festival)

Likewise, it’s difficult to choose from the rich feast of Fringe festival shows. I almost plumped for DK Reinemer’s spoof Becoming Magic Mike, which gave me more belly laughs per minute than any other show this year. But for sheer theatrical verve and imagination, it has to be Kafka’s Metamorphosis, from the Syracuse-based company the Shylock Project. It used puppetry, jolly tunes, self-deprecating meta-textuality and hilariously bombing standup routines to tell the classic boy-becomes-bug story.

L’Idiot (Théâtre du Nouveau Monde)

Dostoyevsky’s novels have provided a rich source of quirky, darkly humorous theatre in Montreal over the past few years, and Théâtre du Nouveau Monde added its version of The Idiot to the mix. Adapted by Étienne Lepage and directed by Catherine Vidal, it blended bizarrely beautiful costumes with a modern sensibility and fizzed with a gaudy energy that cut against the Russian master’s gloomy reputation. Renaud Lacelle-Bourdon brilliantly played the titular twit who creates holy havoc among St. Petersburg’s finest. 

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Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story (Segal Centre)

There were two highly impressive plays from Toronto’s Hannah Moscovitch, and Imago Theatre’s tight production of her Other People’s Children at Centaur almost made it to my list. But it was just pipped by this raucously funny, devastatingly moving klezmer cabaret. Memorably fronted by musician Ben Caplan, it told the story of Moscovitch’s great-grandparents as they escaped from the pogroms of Romania to the relative safety of Canada, circa 1908. 

Starring Renaud Lacelle-Bourdon and Evelyne Brochu, Theatre du Nouveau Monde's L'Idiot blended bizarrely beautiful costumes with a modern sensibility.
Starring Renaud Lacelle-Bourdon and Evelyne Brochu, Theatre du Nouveau Monde’s L’Idiot blended bizarrely beautiful costumes with a modern sensibility. Photo by Yves Renaud

A Doll’s House, Part 2 (Segal Centre)

Making an impressive directorial debut with Lucas Hnath’s cheeky unofficial sequel to Ibsen’s proto-feminist masterpiece, Caitlin Murphy demonstrated that she was willing to take risks, with the sometimes wildly eccentric performances almost toppling into the ridiculous. But they managed to remain on the right side of the sublime, while the set, costumes and lighting added wonderfully to the sense of skewed surrealism. 

Sound of the Beast (MAI)

Playwright and performance poet Donna-Michelle St. Bernard electrified the atmosphere with her one-woman show revolving around police brutality and the Black Lives Matter pushback. A collaboration between Black Theatre Workshop and Toronto’s Theatre Passe Muraille, it was an unforgettable blend of rap, spoken word, song and, occasionally, slick but uncomfortable standup.

Sarah Constible, left, Victoria Barkoff, Oliver Becker and Ellie Moon deftly executed a tricky balancing act in A Doll's House, Part 2 at Segal Centre.
Sarah Constible, left, Victoria Barkoff, Oliver Becker and Ellie Moon deftly executed a tricky balancing act in A Doll’s House, Part 2 at Segal Centre. Photo by Leslie Schachter

Platonov amour haine et angles morts (Théâtre Prospero)

Director Angela Konrad’s take on early Chekhov was not (with apologies to Withnail and I) the usual stuff about women staring out of windows, whining about ducks going to Moscow. Rather, it was loud, punky, rude and savage, with its dissipated Don Juan (Renaud Lacelle-Bourdon again) transformed into a preening Stanley Kowalski, and the women venting primal screams of passion. Not everyone’s samovar of tea, perhaps, but impossible to forget.

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