by AMY BARRATT

Two productions, both alike in dignity.

All right, I don’t know what dignity has to do with it, but Gravy Bath’s two new shows, which opened the New Classical Theatre Festival last week, look and feel surprisingly similar, considering that their subject matter is worlds apart.

Gayanashagowa is Shakespeare for Dummies, set in the New World. Au-delà de la ville is a series of theatrical snapshots of our city, and the company’s first Frenchlanguage show. The same 25 actors perform both pieces, and that’s the beginning of the problem. In each show, everyone stays on stage almost all the time, leading to the formation of many circles and lines. Both shows have similar minimalist sets and moody lighting. Even the music, written and performed by pianist Mark Bond, all runs together.

In its heyday, The Montreal Young Company, which co-produces these shows, knew how to do this: In 2000 and 2001 they produced mini-festivals of two plays with the same cast in repertory. They made a point of choosing plays in different styles and periods to provide variety for theatregoers and really showcase their company.

Tony Palermo, jack-of-all-trades at Gravy Bath, needs to learn that you can’t please all the people all the time. He wanted to make a Romeo and Juliet without all the Shakespearean language that people find “hard.” What he’s ended up with is a production that clarifies some things but also throws in a half-baked concept that doesn’t illuminate much at all. Gayanashagowa (henceforward referred to as “G, ” ) i s Mohawk for “Great Law of Peace,” a constitution composed by the Iroquois tribes before the arrival of Europeans in North America. The production replaces the play’s two families with “two Nations”— the native Montagues and European Capulets. (Hmm... too bad there are no native actors on stage.) This concept is introduced and then forgotten until, inexplicably, characters start to fight and kill one another with weapons apparently fashioned by inept beavers. (No one in the New World has heard of metal, or even stone?)

The New World thing worked a lot better in Repercussion Theatre’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, mainly because that play is a comedy. If audience members continue to giggle at inappropriate moments, as a few did on opening night, Gravy Bath will learn that you tinker with the tragedies at your own risk.

In stripping away the poetic language, Palermo (aka Anthony Kokx, who penned the adaptation) almost creates a stark poetry of his own. Almost. Too often, characters sound like typical inarticulate adolescents, threatening to bring the whole thing down to the level of high school melodrama.

Yann Bernaquez, who also takes a main role in Au-delà, is outstanding in G. Before he is even introduced by name, you know this must be Tybalt because of the anger he carries in his body. Stephanie Greer has a nice turn as Lady Capulet, a woman deeply unhappy in her marriage and conflicted about sending her daughter to the same fate. Matthew Raudsepp’s mop-topped Romeo is clearly a lover not a fighter. Angela Galuppo’s Juliet mostly looks worried. And with good reason: at key points in the drama she has to sing pop songs including “Lovers in a Dangerous Time” and two of her own compositions. Again, this sort of thing works better in a comedy. A lovely voice notwithstanding, the tragedy is diminished by the interpolation of pop tunes.

Au-delà de la ville is a short, sweet meditation on life in the city that doesn’t really go anywhere but is a pleasant trip. I don’t know how to explain it, but you can tell it was created in French, not translated from English. I went hoping to see more of actors who had been mere window-dressing in G. I was largely disappointed. Gravy Bath prides itself on using a lot of actors, but in this festival, most of them are underused.

Gayanashagowa and Au-Delà de la Ville, continue in rep to Aug. 26 at Studio Hydro-Québec of Monument National (1182 St-Laurent), 871-2224

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