Clean sweep

>> Housekeeping & Homewrecking is
impeccable and the Montreal English
Critics Circle honour the best of the year

ROUGH DAY AT THE HOMESTEAD:
Danielle Desormeaux and Jane Wheeler

by AMY BARRATT

Alexandria Haber’s latest play, Housekeeping & Homewrecking, is remarkable as much for what it isn’t as what it is. Even though the text currently running at Théâtre Ste-Catherine is a longer version of the play than was seen at the last Fringe fest, it never feels flabby. Despite the fact that it deals with everyday things—making relationships work, raising kids—it is not kitchen sink realism. Haber doesn’t pretend the play is about anything more than couples—coming together, struggling to stay together, coming apart—but with her unsentimental, not to say scathing, insights into human nature, that’s plenty.

The action takes place in many settings, including a park, but the production has no cheap cardboard trees or fake birdsong. (The set consists of moveable black boxes of various sizes, which the actors occasionally label with chalk: bar, sofa etc) The actors work without props and never resort to cheesy mime techniques. They react to sounds—a doorbell, a baby crying—that the audience doesn’t hear. As directed by Alain Goulem, in a style that recalls Harry Standjofski’s approach to his own plays, Housekeeping and Homewrecking has its own internal logic. Under Goulem’s direction, the uniformly wonderful cast—Danielle Desormeaux, Jane Wheeler, Brett Watson, Paula Jean Hixson, Eleanor Noble, Neil Napier and Haber herself—draw humour and pathos from the playwright’s text, never once sounding a false note.

MECCAS

The Montreal English Critics Circle Awards (MECCAs) were given out Monday night in a gala evening produced by the Centre for Education and Theatre in Montreal and BarBar Productions. And the winners are:

Best Actor: Brett Christopher for I Am My Own Wife (Leanor & Alvin Segal Theatre)

Best Actress: (Tie) Rosemary Dunsmore for Glorious! (Centaur Theatre); Leni Parker for Assorted Candies (Centaur Theatre)

Best Director: Alexandre Marine for Amadeus, (Segal)

Best New Text: (Tie) Adam Kelly for The Anorak (All and One Productions); Vittorio Rossi for Carmela’s Table (Centaur)

Best Ensemble: To the Green Fields Beyond (Persephone Productions)

Best Visiting Production: The Eco Show (Necessary Angel)

Best Set: Yannik Larivée for Amadeus (Segal)

Best Costumes: James Lavoie for Les Fourberies de Scapin/Scapin the Schemer (Repercussion Theatre)

Best Lighting: Jody Burkholder for Heaven (Fallen Angel Productions)

Best Sound: Rob Denton for The Satchmo’ Suite (Segal)

Best Production: American Buffalo (SideMart Theatrical Grocery)

Revelation Award: Mike Payette, director, actor, co-artistic director of Tableau D’Hôte.

The Myron Galloway Award for Distinction: Gabrielle Soskin, teacher, performer, director, founder of Persephone Productions.

Congratulations to all.

TRAD

Meanwhile, the team behind last year’s best production, American Buffalo, is at it again as we speak. TRAD, by Irish playwright Mark Doherty, is currently playing in the new studio space at the Segal. SideMart stalwarts Patrick Costello, Graham Cuthbertson and Andrew Shaver are directed by Bryan Quinn, visiting from Dublin. To Dec. 18 at 8:30 p.m. (no shows on Friday). Box office: (514) 739-7944.

Housekeeping & Homewrecking, tonight,
Thurday Dec. 6–Saturday, Dec. 8 at 8 p.m.,
Sunday, Dec. 9 at 2 p.m. at Théâtre Ste-Catherine,
(264 Ste-catherine E.), (514) 279-6205