by AMY BARRATT

The first thing you should know is that, despite the dry title, there are actually quite a few laughs in Tales From Ovid, a collaboration between the National Theatre School and Centaur theatre. My only regret is that this adaptation of Ted Hughes' translation of tales from the great Roman poet's Metamorphoses doesn't include Nestor's Tale of the Centaurs.

On second thought, it's probably just as well that director Chris Abraham and the 2004 graduating class left out that litany of eye gouging, flesh searing and brain spilling. There's only so much of that sort of thing an audience can take before it starts to giggle, and Tales From Ovid is already brimming with blood, not to mention gag-inducing dinners.

Ovid is a typical collaborative creation - bringing to mind Temenos' Dreamplay as well as Gravy Bath's Kali Yuga - in that it contains a lot of good ideas that never quite coalesce into a single vision. This production is at its best when it veers into broad comedy and even cabaret. It's unfortunate, then, that the first two scenes are played as straight tragedy by actors who possess neither the vocal strength nor the experience to pull it off.

Set designer Catherine Leboeuf's black panels provide a versatile backdrop for these timeless stories of gods and men. Text projected with light or scrawled directly on the panels with chalk reminds us of these stories' place in the Western literary tradition. Even if we've never read Ovid, we will have heard echoes of these tales in everyone from Shakespeare to Neil Labute.

As a showcase for the 10 young actors' talents, Ovid works quite well. Hernán Jiménez plays Narcissus as a Latino pop star, Andrew Hachey's Bacchus is an androgynous baby hedonist, Shelley Banks' Juno is a broad and Dalal Badr's Venus is lovely as a Bouguereau nymph. The show features inspired lighting by Luc Prairie and original music performed live by Rick Hyslop. All in all, an entertaining evening, though one that left me with no appetite for the opening night hors d'oeuvres.

Montreal stories

Tales From Ovid is in a way a preview of things to come at Centaur. Gordon McCall recently unveiled his 2005–06 season, an unprecedented lineup of new plays by Montreal authors. This is a huge departure for the company that has often been criticized for programming too much middle-of-the-road American fare.

The season features two French-language plays in translation: Cheech, by François Létourneau and The Driving Force (Impératif Présent) by Michel Tremblay. The former is a Montreal English-language première, the latter gets its English world premiere at the Centaur. Also in the lineup are brand new works by David Fennario, Vittorio Rossi and current playwright-in-residence David Sherman. Left to single-handedly balance out all that testosterone, and quite possibly up to the task, is a remount/revamp of Imago Theatre's Bye Bye Baby by Elyse Gasco.

Although Gordon McCall has made tentative attempts all along to embrace the existing Montreal theatre community - notably with the Wildside festival - this new season amounts to a re-imagining of the Centaur's role. Probably some long-time subscribers will be unhappy. Probably some of the new shows will be less than transcendent. No matter. The 2005–06 season reflects a Centaur that is putting its faith in, and investing its resources in, the Montreal community to a degree that's never been seen in its 37-year history. I raise my glass to them.

Tales From Ovid continues to April 3 at the Centaur (453 St-François-Xavier), $20–$40, 288-3161

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