Changes, challenges
and the church

>> Highlights and problems from the past year

SONGS FROM DAIRYLAND: Ryan Paulson

by AMY BARRATT

The year began with a one-person show in which someone from Wisconsin told touching and funny stories about growing up in an evangelical, fundamentalist tradition. The year ended with a different one-person show in which a Wisconsinite (Wiscon-sinner?) told touching and funny stories about growing up in an evangelical fundamentalist tradition. In Pentecostal Wisconsin, part of last January’s Wildside Festival, Ryan Paulson played guitar, sang songs and charmed his way right into our hearts. In Almost Pretty, part of the Harvest LGBT Festival, Kelli Dunham, aka Sister Mary Bulldyke, delighted L, G, B, T and even S audiences with stories of being sent to a conservative, fundamentalist school where things that were forbidden included “the wearing of flannel shirts by females.”

“Who do you think they were trying to weed out with that one?” the comic asks.

Continuing on the religious theme, 2007 had two original plays by local playwrights with Jesus in the title. Patrick de Moss’s When I Was Jesus played at the MainLine briefly last summer and Louise Arsenault gave us Dating Jesus later in the year at Théâtre Ste-Catherine.

This year, English theatre also seemed to have a spate of plays with occupations in the title: The Caretaker, The Carpenter, The Dishwashers. If you stretch it, you could also include Legend of the Barbarian, Jehanne of the Witches, Defending the Caveman and even Scapin the Schemer.

Local English companies produced an eclectic mix of plays by Quebec (English and French), Canadian and international playwrights. Still, local audiences are at a disadvantage when it comes to seeing the plays that are making waves across the country. Even a company like Tableau d’Hôte, which is devoted to Canadian works, is stuck playing catch-up, because the backlog of Canadian plays never produced here is so huge.

Of the five works nominated for the 2007 Governor-General’s Award for Drama, none has been—or is slated to be—produced in Montreal, and that’s a shame. There is wonderful, meaty material in the plays by Anosh Irani, Morris Panych, Rosa Laborde and (NTS graduate) Salvatore Antonio, but the one text Montreal companies should be fighting over is the GG winner, The December Man (L’Homme de décembre) by Colleen Murphy. This deeply moving play looks at the fallout from the Polytechnique massacre—which took place 18 years ago this month—on one family.

A work of the imagination inspired by real events, Murphy’s play begins at the end and moves backward in time to December 6, 1989 to show the devastating effect of the massacre on a young man—one of those sent out of the classroom before the gunman started firing at female students—and on his working class parents. Local writer-performer Adam Kelly masterfully addressed the same events from the point of view of the killer in The Anorak, which shared a 2007 Mecca award for Best New Text. The Anorak and The December Man are vastly different works, but both deal with how, through isolation and neglect, society can push people over the edge. The December Man (available from Playwrights Canada Press) has so far been seen in Calgary, and will be produced in Edmonton and Toronto in the new year. Montreal doesn’t just deserve, it needs its own production. Who will take up the challenge?

Change was rife in the English theatre community last year, beginning with the appointment of a new artistic director at the Centaur. Roy Surette took up his duties in November. We can expect the announcement of his programming choices for 2008–’09 sometime in early spring. Paul Hopkins took the reins at Repercussion Theatre, Montreal’s home of theatre in the parks. He introduced a Shakespeare Training Program for actors and non-actors.

The Segal Theatre created a second performance space and SideMart Theatrical Grocery was named the Studio’s resident company. Changes also took place in the dingy hallways of theatre criticism. Matt Radz, the Gazette’s drama critic since 2001, left the paper in November. Stepping (back) into the tight shoes of theatre critic is Pat Donnelly, who held the post from 1987–2001, and most recently has been covering the literary scene.

A word to the wise: The Mirror’s Winter Arts issue comes out Jan. 10, so if you’re doing a show in the first few months of 2008, get me a press release asap! Happy holidays.