Lachlan Stewart reloads his Big Shot
Polymath’s much-acclaimed solo show gets a bilingual production at Théâtre Prospero
He’s gone from Big Shot to Zero then back again, and he’s got there part of the way in a refurbished 1970s ambulance.
To explain: All-around theatre practitioner Jon Lachlan Stewart first made a name for himself with his 2008 solo show Big Shot, a jagged fast-moving multicharacter piece about a mysterious shooting on the Vancouver SkyTrain (one of its many stops was Centaur’s Wild Side festival in 2014).
Fast forward to February of 2015 and Théâtre Prospero’s version of Dostoyevsky’s The Gambler, in which Lachlan Stewart portrayed sinister master of ceremonies Monsieur Zero (he also choreographed the show).
This week, the much-indemand actor, director, choreographer, writer and sound designer is back at Prospero with his company Surreal SoReal and a newly bilingual version of Big Shot.
And that refurbished ’70s ambulance? That would be the theatre delivery service La Fille du Laitier, which Lachlan Stewart co-runs and which travels around the country performing idiosyncratic mime-and-object shows like Caisse 606 and Macbeth Muet.
But back to Big Shot, which began as a 25-minute piece for Lachlan Stewart’s final project while studying theatre at Vancouver’s Studio 58.
Its initial inspiration came about from noticing an elderly Japanese man on the street. “I thought, I’d love to be that guy onstage,” the shape-shifting Lachlan Stewart said in an interview with the Montreal Gazette.
Soon the show had acquired five other characters, three times the playing time and, as Lachlan Stewart put it, “a horizontal perspective of a shot being fired and how, as the bullet is moving in slow motion, you hear every story about the how and the why of the shot.”
Given that all the characters — including a cop, a heroin addict and 12-year-old boy — give their own perspective on the fateful gunshot, you might think the Japanese classic movie Rashomon provided a model for the show. But any resemblance is entirely coincidental, Lachlan Stewart said.
“Someone came to me after the show,” he said, “and said, ‘So, you totally got this from Rashomon, right?’ I was like, ‘No, but I’ll have to check it out now.’”
But other movies have provided inspiration for the show’s visual language, specifically those of Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie.
“It’s imitating that level of energy,” Lachlan Stewart said. “I’ll give the impression of closeups and slow motion, then a scene might be fast-forwarded. But there’s also a humanity underneath the style which I hope people will recognize.”
Also important for the selfproclaimed francophile (it’s a key reason he moved to Montreal) is the bilingual aspect he’s bringing to the Prospero version.
“I love the French theatres here,” he said. “They’re immersed in their own research about what theatre and art are. I’ve learned a lot from them. More people in the rest of the country should pay attention to what’s going on here and find a way to exchange with it more.”
Also playing at Prospero this week is Caryl Churchill’s Far Away, which is directed by Édith Patenaude, whose production of 1984 played at Théâtre DenisePelletier last November.
Churchill’s 2001 one-act play is also a dystopian vision of the future, but with more of a dark fairy tale twist, positing a world in which fancy hats play a part in state terror and animals pick sides in a cataclysmic war.
The last play from this legendary British writer to receive a major production in Montreal was the Segal’s award-winning Top Girls, so this is a must for anybody interested in weighty contemporary theatre.
He is risen, and just in time for Easter weekend. Or rather she has risen, as improv messiah Sandi Armstrong again straps on the sandals and hippie headband to take the lead in Jesus Christ Superband, which returns for the fifth time to Théâtre Ste-Catherine (April 14 to 16).
That little tweak to the title of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s classic 1970s rock opera arises from a nifty little framing device Armstrong & Co. have come up with — namely that Jesus is gathering unto herself disciples who know how to belt out a tune or play a mean riff. Otherwise, they’re keeping close to the original, with a live band providing backing for such familiar songs as I Don’t Know How to Love Him, Everything’s Alright and, of course, Superstar.
Armstrong, who played an entirely different kind of messianic figure in last year’s ATM: the Musical at TSC (clue: her character was called Donna Lump), explained during a phone conversation that the gender swap was entirely down to her being unable to hit the high notes as Mary Magdalene rather than a comment on Jesus’ boys-only apostles club.
Those who have caught this theatre’s anarchic and often very funny in-house productions might be expecting an irreverent spoof on Christianity, but Armstrong insists everything is above board and Easter-friendly.
“It’s really a homage to a great musical, with a few comedy bits,” Armstrong said. “But it’s in no way making fun of Christianity. My mom is born-again and I was worried about how she would take it. But she’s our biggest fan of the show.”
A couple of interesting francophone productions currently playing: J’aime Hydro (Usine C, to April 13) continues Porte Parole’s riveting docudrama about the controversial practices of Quebec’s mighty power supplier. The four-hour show includes parts 1 and 2, which were seen at La Licorne last year, before proceeding to première parts 3 and 4, where an amusingly self-deprecating Christine Beaulieu continues her inquiries with help from co-performer Mathieu Gosselin.
La Bibliothèque-interdite (Théâtre Quat’Sous, to April 13) reunites director Brigitte Haentjens, one of the performing arts laureates of this year’s Governor General’s Awards, with actor Sébastien Ricard, following their 2015 collaboration on Richard III at TNM.
Backed by live tango music, it tells the story of an idealistic poet taking on the job of concierge at a mysteriou library in 1940s Buenos Aires.
Théâtre du Nouveau Monde unveiled their 2017-18 season last Monday, with Michel Tremblay and François Dompierre’s 1970
musical comedy Demain Matin, Montréal m’attend getting things off to a joyous start in October.
There’s an emphasis on classic texts with Arthur Miller’s A View From the Bridge, Molière’s Les fourberies de Scapin and Ionesco’s Les chaises (starring Monique Miller), plus a new adaptation of Dostoyevsky’s monumental novel The Idiot.
There’s also an adaptation of Manitoban novelist Gabrielle Roy’s autobiography La Détresse et l’enchantment, and a musical visit from French actor Lambert Wilson, who will be paying tribute to legendary singer-actor Yves Montand. Visit tnm.qc.ca for more information.