by AMY BARRATT

Nostalgia, the land where many of Michel Tremblay’s recent works reside, is a tricky landscape, where a writer could easily stumble into sentimentality… A writer less sure-footed than Tremblay, that is.

Assorted Candies, the second play in the Centaur season, is an adaptation of Tremblay’s collection of short stories—originally Bonbons assortis—translated by Linda Gaboriau. Tremblay has added and subtracted material from the book’s vignettes, reshaping it to make sure it builds to a dramatic climax. This is more than an adaptation, it is a bona fide new Tremblay play.

With its adult narrator who keeps stepping into the action to play his own younger self, it looks like a companion piece to For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again. That play, the first Tremblay work to be staged at Centaur under Gordon McCall’s artistic direction, was a huge success, touring to several cities and returning in triumph. So there is virtually no risk involved in staging Assorted Candies; audiences are bound to gobble up these glimpses of Plateau life in the late ’40s as greedily as Matante Bartine wolfing down Nana’s proffered chocolates.

That sounds contemptuous, and I don’t mean it to. After all, I tucked in to first the book, then the play with equal relish. What makes both For the Pleasure and Assorted Candies work is not that they’re funny, or philosophical—though they are—but that they’re true. Not literally true, because Tremblay is ready to play with the events of his own life when necessary, but poetically true. That’s something director Serge Denoncourt understands perfectly and reflects in his production.

I’m sure designer John Dinning’s very spare, very white set looks nothing like the real kitchen of the flat at 4690 rue Fabre that was home to 12 people, nor is it meant to. The bright linoleum floor floats like a pale raft in a dark sea just as certain moments or hours shine forever in our memories while others recede and are lost.

Many Centaur patrons will agree with the woman overheard leaving the theatre on opening night, that Gordon McCall as Michel was awfully cute. Too bad he seemed to be going for cute, rather than striving for truth in the moment that would ultimately have made the character more endearing. After all, the adult Tremblay remembers these incidents not because they’re cute, but because at the time he was terrified, or mortified, or some other intense emotion—nothing cute about it.

On the other hand, there are strokes of genius in Denoncourt’s casting. Leni Parker plays Albertine big, bigger and biggest without once going for the cheap laugh. She is a force of nature akin to the thunderstorm that sends all the women of the house into their closets. Then there’s Nana, surely the most daunting character in all of Quebec drama simply because she’s so well known. Clare Schapiro, like the great Rita Lafontaine before her, embodies the character’s essential blend of intelligence and warmth. Despite her sometimes caustic wit, Nana is irresistible. So is Schapiro. Bravo.

Headed for war

More nostalgia? Or biting political commentary? Which can we expect from To the Green Fields Beyond, a WWI battlefield drama from Persephone Productions, opening tonight? Certainly some fine acting should be in store as Tristan D. Lalla, Neil Napier, Aaron Turner, Toma Weideman and many more rising stars take on British playwright Nick Whitby’s realistic/poetic piece about an eight-man tank crew poised to go into battle. It runs until Nov. 19 at Théâtre la Chapelle, (514) 843-7738.

Assorted Candies, to Dec. 3 at Centaur (453 St-François Xavier), (514) 288-3161

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