AN OVATION FOR THEATRE'S RETURN
Our top 10 can’t contain all the year’s best shows as live performances were revived
It was a year of experiments for a theatre scene pushed off the stage for so long, before returning in (relatively) full force by the fall. Sadly, that comeback has turned out to be short-lived, but onward with this celebration of a year of achievements against the odds. Most of those experiments, of course, were online, and Centaur Theatre's Wildside Festival in January boasted some of the more successful attempts — The Bakery's SKIN, based on the philosophical musings of Seneca, was a richly inventive barrage of visuals, and Sophie El Assaad's haunting Black Balloon: Leila used the silent film classic La Passion de Jeanne d'arc to explore attitudes toward Muslim women. Centaur also hosted a pretty wild initiative from Vancouver's Boca del Lupo with the “script delivery service” Plays2perform@home.
Several companies moved things outside, with both Centaur's Portico Project and Tableau D'hôte's urban series En Pointe returning for a second year.
As theatres ventured back indoors, many of them did so by dipping a single toe into the water. In other words, solo performances. Among them were Joe Jack et John's virtual reality creation Violette at Espace Libre, Infinithéâtre's production of Mohsen El Gharbi's Tunisian memoir Omi Mouna, and Leni Parker multi-tasking as The Blonde, the Brunette and the Vengeful Redhead at Hudson Village Theatre.
Festivals also made a tentative return, with Montréal Complètement Cirque, Festival Transamériques and the Montreal Fringe offering both live and online content.
Some hit shows were presented again, including Scapegoat Carnivale's startling Siberian hermit drama Yev and Angela Konrad's superb deconstruction of Chekhov's Platonov at Théâtre Prospero.
Such was the strength of Montreal theatre's comeback that many deserving productions didn't make it to my final list. Among them: Théâtre du Nouveau Monde's production of Michel Marc Bouchard's poetic, fashion-themed drama Embrasse (which will play as Kisses Deep at the Centaur in January); Théâtre du Rideau Vert's production of Michel Tremblay's searing self-examination Le vrai monde?; and Superdogs: The Musical at the Segal, which, despite a pretty ruff script, was a howling delight thanks to 24 super-talented and adorable canines. And, staying with the holiday mood, there was Rebecca Northan's spirited and inventive elfin comedy All I Want for Christmas at the Centaur.
THE YEAR'S TOP 10 SHOWS (IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER)
Every Brilliant Thing: Duncan Macmillan and Jonny Donahoe's joyful celebration of life amid tragedy was just the thing for audiences emerging from lockdown. Performed at the Segal and co-produced with Hudson Village Theatre, it had a thoroughly engaging Daniel Brochu enlisting audience members to help with his life-affirming list. Director Dean Patrick Fleming found ingenious and eccentric ways to keep those interactions safe.
Mob: Catherine-anne Toupin's white-knuckle #Metoo thriller (translated from La Meute) was halted by the pandemic last year, but Centaur revived it with the original cast — Matthew Kabwe, Adrianne Richards and Susan Bain — and it was as raw, uncomfortable and gripping as ever.
Black and Blue Matters — Track 1: No One Gives a F--- About a Cop: Black Theatre Workshop offered a powerful preview of Omari Newton's Black and Blue Matters, which comes to the Segal in February. Performed outdoors, this 10-minute extract was a ferocious rap battle between Justin Johnson and David Kaye as, respectively, a Black teenager and the cop who shot him.
The King Stinks: Jon Lachlan Stewart and his company Surreal Soreal Theatre explored presidential expectations in this splendidly absurd cartoon of a play. Dazzlingly performed by Lachlan Stewart and Clara Prévost, it was presented at La Sala Rossa as part of Festival Phénomena. Surreal Soreal also scored with a punky and witty adaptation of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, co-produced with Geordie Theatre at Théâtre Denise-pelletier.
Sisyphus: Victor Pilon, of multimedia company Lemieux Pilon 4D Art, spent a solid month shovelling 50 tons of sand from one pile to another in the East Hall of the Olympic Stadium. At once an emulation of the Greek myth and a gruelling act of grieving for a lost loved one, it was also a surprisingly effective, visually arresting piece of theatre. Italian Mime Suicide: In this visiting production at Théâtre Aux Écuries, the Toronto company Bad New Days riffed on the true story of a mime artist who killed himself because nobody took his craft seriously. By doing so with such amazing physical skills, they fully vindicated that craft while providing laughs and existential conundrums along the way, all backed by a fantastic live soundtrack from turntable artist Slowpitchsound. Ulster American: Many were the gasps of disbelief from the audience at La Licorne during David Ireland's brutal comedy, which sends up a truly hideous strain of toxic masculinity. It also hilariously pits theatrical egos against the bloody politics of Northern Ireland. A terrific francophone cast of Frédéric Blanchette, Lauren Hartley and David Boutin (as, respectively, a director, a playwright and a smug Hollywood actor) ensured a furiously entertaining evening.
The Statement: In her contribution to Ballet BC'S visiting trilogy, world-renowned choreographer Crystal Pite created a stunning hybrid of dance and Kafkaesque drama. Playing as part of the Danse Danse season at Place des Arts, it featured four dancers miming to a recorded script while gesturing like some impossibly contorting alien species.
The Sighlence of Sky: Anana Rydvald's one-woman mask-andmime show, which Infinithéâtre presented at the Kin Experience gallery, was a touching, expertly performed tribute to the resilience of a troubled family member. Spiral/this Show is Broken: Joseph Ste-marie's This Show is Broken, an unflinchingly honest meta-drama about living with autism and self-doubt, struck me as the strongest of the Montreal Fringe's online shows. Of the live shows, it would have to be Michelle Soicher's Spiral, which played at Petit Campus and made marvellous use of an actual Rube Goldberg contraption to explore choice in an indifferent universe.