Reasonable
collaborations

>> Montreal’s theatre artists do more than just accommodate cultures and groups

EYE OF THE TIGER:
Louis Negin and Marie Brassard

by AMY BARRATT

As the Bouchard-Taylor roadshow continues to give ordinary Quebecers a platform for their ignorance, Quebec theatre artists are going along as usual, quietly fostering understanding. They seem to recognize that if we had true understanding between cultures and groups, there would be no need for the current debate, which is neither reasonable nor accommodating.

Like everyone else, artists sometimes find difference scary, but unlike Jo Blo, artists are also excited and exhilarated by it. Take the cast of A Leaf in a Whirlwind (reviewed last week), not one of whom is a native English speaker, telling a story of war and displacement through text by Jodi Essery and dances by Aparna Sindhoor, at the MAI. Or take Marie Brassard…

The frequent Robert Lepage collaborator has taken risks in her time, notably in her one-person shows like Jimmy, créature de rêve and La Noirceur, which explored some of the deepest human emotions within a highly technical environment. Her latest work is something else again. The Glass Eye, playing through Saturday, Oct. 27 at Usine C, is a collaboration between Brassard and Louis Negin, a Toronto-based actor whose stage and screen credits stretch back to the ’50s.

It began with a show called Polo’s Fantasy, a faux memoir. (Negin brought it to Montreal’s MainLine Theatre in 2005). The Glass Eye, which had the working title “Around Polo’s Fantasy,” is still a one-man show starring Negin, but it has evolved into something new under Brassard’s direction. The story of a young gay man in Toronto in the ’40s who creates an alter ego to go off to Montreal and live the wild life he wants for himself, is performed in English.

Elsewhere on our stages, artists are remembering the Holocaust, and reminding us that genocide is not just a thing of the past. Most of us know the story of Anne Frank, currently being brought to new life at the Segal Centre. But Anne, whose little cloth-covered diary survived while she perished in a concentration camp, is but one of a million and a half children killed by the Nazis.

Another one of their stories is coming to a Montreal stage in Hana’s Suitcase. A Theatre for Young Audiences production from Toronto, it is being remounted here by Geordie Productions starting Nov. 22 at Concordia’s D. B. Clarke Theatre.

Based on the book by Karen Levine, the play tells the story of a small suitcase that turned up at a Holocaust museum in Tokyo. Painted on the front was the name Hana Brady, the date of birth, May 16, 1931, and the word “orphan” in German. With nothing more to go on, the museum’s curator, Fumiko Ishioka, set out to learn as much as she could about the owner of the case. She eventually found Hana’s older brother George, living in Canada, and he put a face and a story to the name.

Geordie is bringing Hana’s Suitcase to Montreal because they feel it is important for audiences to see it, even though it is placing a strain on the 26-year-old company’s resources.

Those crazy Kiss My Cabaret kids are doing their bit to help: tomorrow night’s (Oct. 26) Halloween show at la Sala Rossa is a fundraiser to help Geordie pay for the production.

“I’m making [Geordie artistic director] Dean Fleming sing for his supper,” says emcee Danette Mackay, though what Fleming’s contribution will be to the eclectic soirée is “top secret.” Tickets are $10 with a costume, $20 without. Or to make a donation to Geordie Productions, go to www.geordie.ca.