Fractured fairy tale

A slanted stage supports a cock-eyed story
in Infinitheatre’s John and Béatrice

IN IT FOR THE MONEY:
Tania Kontoyanni and Frank Schorpion

By NEIL BOYCE

Nothing’s on the level in John and Béatrice. The set, the plot, the dialogue—everything in this fairy tale/love story/battle of the sexes from noted Quebec playwright Carole Fréchette seems intent on keeping spectators off-balance.

A first in English in Montreal, the Infinitheatre season opener makes another stab at working around the company’s peculiar venue, the old Bain St-Michel in Mile-End. Seats are set up in the pool and we face a stage (in the deep end) slanting dangerously at an angle towards us. The spare props—an old armchair, bottles of water, a loom with yarn that stretches out like a spider web—all look ready to slide off, taking the actors with them. Even the apples strewn about the stage must have been glued down.

In this off-kilter world—a nearly empty room on the 33rd floor of a skyscraper with no elevator—waits Béatrice, dressed as a princess. A poster she had circulated states she wants a man who will “interest, move and seduce her,” with promise of a substantial reward. She’s Rapunzel, The Princess Who Can’t Laugh, or 1,000 other fairy tale damsels who would put potential suitors to the test.

But what arrives, exhausted from the trek, is far from Prince Charming. John (Frank Schorpion), an irritating prick with a grating voice, only wants the bucks (stacks of 20s preferred) and in this production tackles the job more like a wayward plumber than a steely-eyed seducer of women.

Throughout the awkward courtship, Béatrice’s story changes with each retelling: her father’s name was Iannis or Iorgis, he was wealthy or he sold insurance and died of an embolism in a poker game. Her parents conceived her on the top floor of a skyscraper while hurricane Béatrice blew the roof off the building. Or not.

Director Guy Sprung sought out Quebec actress Tania Kontoyanni for Béatrice. A familiar face in French-language theatre, Kontoyanni is wonderfully playful in a nutty sort of way, delivering simple lines like, “I hate being bored” with comic passion.

The match-up of accents has an Ontario vs. Quebec vibe that gives the play a nice tension, and Fréchette’s text (translated by John Murrell) has the florid language and vivid colours of a Brothers Grimm story.

Although the inevitability of their entanglement is about as convincing as the plot of a porno, Sprung injects plenty of sweat into the story. But in the best fairy tales, there must be a correlation to something real and deeply felt, where the root of the story takes hold and begins to grow. We have to believe even a fairy tale can come true.

Congrats to MECCA Winners

It was a great year for English theatre at the 2008 MECCA Awards on October 20. Here’s how it went down:

Best Actor - Patrick Costello (Trad) • Best Actress - Nathalie Claude (The Baroness and the Pig) • Best Director - Olivier Perras (7 Stories) • Best New Text - Graham Cuthbertson (Haunted Hillbilly: The Hyram Woodside Atrocity) • Best Ensemble - Housekeeping & Homewrecking • Best Visiting Production - The Tricky Part • Best Set Design - Jennifer Goodman (7 Stories) • Best Costume Design - Susana Vera (The Jungle Book) • Best Lighting - Steve Lucas (blood[claat]) • Best Sound - Matthew Barber and Joe Grass (Haunted Hillbilly: The Hyram Woodside Atrocity) • Best Production - The Baronnes and the Pig • Revelation Award - SideMart Theatrical Grocery (Honourable Mention - Tableau d’Hote, Altera Vitae) • Myron Galloway Award for Distinction - Alain Goulem

Full nominations and more at www.meccas.org

JOHN AND BÉATRICE TO NOV. 9 AT
BAIN ST-MICHEL (5300 ST-DOMINIQUE),
INFO: 514-987-1774, EXT. 104