by AMY BARRATT

Last week, I saw two original English plays by Montreal playwrights. What’s remarkable about this statement is that it’s no longer so remarkable. Just since the beginning of 2006, we’ve seen three original Montreal plays at the Wildside Festival, and new plays from Untimely Ripped (Tecumseh As a Doorstop) and MainLine (Johnny Canuck). Last week, I saw Baby Making, by actor-turned-playwright Jeanie Keogh, and Hellfire Pass, by Vittorio Rossi, who also, not so coincidentally, started out as an actor.

English actors in Montreal quickly learn that sitting around waiting for the phone to ring (like the character of Laney in Baby Making) isn’t the answer: you’ve got to get up and make your own work. Some jump into the collective creation process, others hole up with their computers and discover a talent for writing.

It’s no surprise that Rossi—like David Fennario, whose Condoville opened the current “Montreal Stories” season at the Centaur—can turn out a well-structured play with memorable characters. It’s been close to 20 years since Rossi’s first full-length play, The Chain, premiered with the city’s oldest English company. It’s reassuring to see that the Ville Emard boy hasn’t gone all experimental on our ass, eschewing dialogue for movement sequences or having three actors play one role (not that there’s anything wrong with that—geez, spare me the outraged e-mails). It’s just nice to see a playwright with the confidence to say what he has to say within a traditional structure.

Hellfire Pass, set in 1956, is the first in a promised trilogy of plays based on the life of Rossi’s late father. In it, Silvio (Richard Zeppieri), an Italian man in his mid-’30s, arrives at the Chicago home of Eduardo, the father who abandoned him in infancy. The first act introduces Silvio to his half-brother Eddie (Julian Tassielli), a good-hearted salesman who enjoys his wine a little too much, and half-sister Ida (Tara Nicodemo, displaying a warmth that we didn’t get to appreciate in the chilly The Shape of Things in 2004). In addition to Zeppieri, who has distinguished himself at Stratford and Toronto’s Soul Pepper among others since appearing in early Rossi plays at Centaur, the cast also includes old Concordia friends Mark Camacho, as Ida’s galootish husband Bobby, and Harry Standjofski as the patriarch. Eduardo’s wife Angelina is played by Stratford and Road to Avonlea alumnus Lally Cadeau. Only one role, that of young family friend Rita (Lauren Spring) feels under-written and under-directed.

Zeppieri brings an amazing intensity to the role of a man haunted by his wartime experiences (the title refers to a battle in the North African campaign). I hope Centaur patrons will get to see the rest of Rossi’s trilogy with Zeppieri in the lead. Hats off to Gordon McCall for taking the lead in bringing Montreal playwrights to the Montreal stage.

Jeanie Keogh’s Baby Making is an intelligent, funny portrait of a relationship that owes a debt to Harold Pinter’s Betrayal. It begins at the end and then moves back and forth in time. Under Sid Zanforlin’s direction, Brett Watson and Adrianne Richards gave the kind of performances that make a critic lay aside her notebook and just watch.

Anarchist beckoning

Attention playwrights: If you’ve been wanting to take your anarchist side out for a spin, a new theatre festival wants you. To be held May 8–9 as part of Montreal’s Anarchist Festival (which culminates with the Anarchist Book Fair) the Anarchist Theatre Festival is accepting submissions until Feb. 22. Contact anarchistfestival@yahoo.ca.

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