by AMY BARRATT

Louise Bombardier, an actress whose work I have enjoyed on stage as well as on the small screen, is also a playwright, with many works for young audiences and a few for adults under her belt. Her latest, Ma mère chien, currently playing at Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui, is definitely of the latter variety.

What is most disappointing in this premiere production is the absence of humour. But it’s a play about a daughter sitting at her mother’s deathbed, you may protest. Where’s the humour in that? Granted, the humour would have to be dark, but Bombardier is great at that, at least in her acting. Think of her performances in plays like Reynald Robinson’s La salle des loisirs, or George F. Walker’s Pour adultes seulement, or even in her TV role as Aline, the social-climbing sister in Les Bougon.

All of these works manage to address serious topics without getting all pretentious about it. In contrast, Ma mère chien is excruciatingly serious about itself.

The story is basically this: An elderly woman (Anne Caron) is dying in a hospital bed. Her elder daughter (Markita Boies) is sitting with her, and her younger daughter, an actress who has been shooting a film in Mexico, will be back in 36 hours. The mother will keep herself alive by sheer will until the daughter arrives.

Obviously, in order to make a play, the actors have to be given something more to do than just wait. So Bombardier gets busy creating a potpourri of dreams and memories—mother’s and daughter’s—to pass the time. Two other actors (Robert Lalonde and Patricia Nolin) do double duty as hospital staff and as apparitions in these nightmarish visions. It’s not always clear who they are or what their relationship is to the mother and daughter.

Anyone who has sat at the bedside of a dying parent will probably be moved watching the play, but it will be their own memories, not the play, moving them. Wajdi Mouawad’s mise en scène does a good job of recreating the sterile atmosphere of a hospital room, but at no point did I get a sense of the complicated dependencies, resentments and fierce bonds of an actual family.

I’m sure Bombardier and Mouawad were going for some profound artistic statement by having the mother live out her last minutes buck naked on the narrow hospital cot, but all I could think watching this part of the play was: When my turn comes I hope my loved ones will bloody well have the courtesy to cover me up!

Berlin bust

Meanwhile, you’re still invited to “come to the cabaret” at the Segal theatre. While not a bad way to spend an evening, this Cabaret lacks inspiration. The production tries hard to bring us in to the action by seating a few lucky patrons at tables on the stage, as well as with a sequence where the MC goes out and drags people from the audience to dance with him. Unfortunately, instead of pulling us into 1930s Berlin, it reminds us, in case we had forgotten, that we are here at the Segal in 2005. Kathleen McAuliffe and Michael Rudder steal the show as the elderly star-crossed lovers. The singers are backed by a killer six-piece live band, led by John Gilbert. It runs to Oct. 2 at the Leonor and Alvin Segal Theatre of the Saidye Bronfman Centre (5170 Côte-Ste-Catherine), 739-7944.

MA MÈRE CHIEN, TO OCT. 8 AT THÉÂTRE D’AUJOURD’HUI
(3900 ST-DENIS), 282-3900

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