Hudson Village Theatre reaching out to a wider audience
New artistic director Matthew Tiffin starting with road- tested favourites
When Hudson Village Theatre’s new artistic director, Matthew Tiffin, took over the reins last September, he promised to raise the game of this charming little theatre located in a refurbished train station just 40 minutes from downtown Montreal.
Judging from the upcoming summer season announced this week, made up mainly of roadtested shows, he’s well on his way to living up to his promise.
Notably, he’s bringing in Martha Burns, a noted Toronto actor, veteran of the Shaw and Stratford Festivals and a lead performer in the CTV television series Slings and Arrows, to star in the Tennessee Williams classic The Glass Menagerie. It will run July 8 to 26.
Each play Tiffin has chosen will probably appeal to a slightly different demographic, he said during an interview following an audition he held for National Theatre School students this week. He will be directing The Glass Menagerie himself and is currently lining up local actors to complete the cast.
“We’re trying to reach a wider, more diverse audience,” he said.
At the same time, he will strive to keep the already enthusiastically committed locals in their pews.
“Each play has a particular hook,” he said. “With The Glass Menagerie, it’s Martha Burns ( as the faded belle Amanda Wingfield).”
The 2015 season begins on June 16 with a quirky, participatory theatre comedy, Blind Date by Rebecca Northern, starring Christy Bruce. She plays a Parisian woman named Mimi who has been stood up by her blind date. To cut her losses, she ventures into the audience and picks another date ( hopefully, a willing volunteer). The 90- minute improvisational comedy proceeds from there.
Each performance will be unique, but Blind Date, created in 2007, always works, Tiffin said. It has already won acclaim in London’s West End, as well as New York, Toronto and Calgary.
The August production, run- ning Aug. 12 to 30, is a rollicking Canadian musical by Grant Tilly called Bingo Ladies, the Musical. It bears some passing resemblance to the recently launched Belles Soeurs musical, based on Michel Tremblay’s play Les Belles Soeurs.
In Bingo Ladies, one woman, a septuagenarian of ill health attached to an oxygen tank, wins one too many bingo games at the local hall. Then, as Tiffin puts it, “the two other ladies decide to take care of business. Stuff goes down in the bingo hall.”
The musical includes four characters and 16 songs.
“They’re the kind of songs you go home humming,” he added. “It’s very funny.”
A previously staged production of Bingo Ladies, from Port Stanley Theatre in Ontario, will be playing at Hudson Village Theatre minus one of its original players, actor Lisa Horner, who stole the show in Montreal’s Belles Soeurs. Unfortunately, she has another booking.
The final production of the four- play season ( Sept. 16 to 20) is Jake’s Gift, a widely lauded Canadian play by Julia Mackey. It chronicles the friendship that develops between a Second World War veteran who makes a trip to Normandy to find the grave of his brother who was killed during the war and a 10- year- old girl who looks after the monuments in the graveyard.
Since 2007, this show, produced by Juno Productions, has toured to almost 200 communities across Canada, winning awards and rave reviews along the way.
“It’s hands- down one of the most touching, funny and heartbreaking plays I’ve ever seen,” he said.
Tiffin, 41, formerly known as Madd Harold during his years with Gravy Bath Productions in Montreal, served as artistic director of Ship’s Company Theatre in Parrsboro, N. S., for four years, but is currently based in Toronto. He commutes to work in Hudson. He said the Hudson Village Theatre board of directors has been very supportive. “They’re very excited to get things going for this year. It feels like a new beginning, a fresh start.”
To purchase tickets at reduced rates or Flex Passes for the 2015 Hudson Village Theatre summer season, call 450- 458- 5361 or visit www. villagetheatre.ca.
Meanwhile, during chilly February in
Montreal, the hottest ticket is Robert Lepage’s Jeux de cartes: Coeur, which opens Wednesday at Tohu. Following hard upon the heels of its companion piece, Jeux de cartes: Pique, which just completed its second run at the same theatre, this episodic tale follows five generations, time- travelling between colonial Algeria to 1960s Europe and contemporary Quebec.
Like all Lepage works, Coeur is visually arresting and technically innovative, and moves swiftly between locales in a cinematic fashion. One of its key features, besides the revolving circular theatre stage that keeps the actors below deck for the duration, is a see- through curtain that envelopes the stage, serving as a screen for vintage film footage.
When it made its North American première at Tohu last year, Coeur was still a work in progress, while Pique, which had already toured for some time, was running smoothly. This time around, Coeur, which begins with card tricks performed by a magician in 19th- century France, should be fine- tuned and ready for rigorous scrutiny. It’s performed in Arabic and Italian as well as French and English.
We’re trying to reach a wider, more diverse audience. Each play has a particular hook, with The Glass Menagerie, it’s Martha Burns ( as the faded belle Amanda Wingfield).