Theatre untamed

The Centaur brings indie productions
together at the 12th annual Wildside Festival

By NEIL BOYCE

It’s year 12 for Wildside, a great little mid-winter festival put together by Centaur theatre, and a “best-of” collection from the Fringe and other Canada-wide indie stages over the last year.

Faux-punks Die Roten Punkte won last year’s “Off the Main” award as best of the Fringe, giving them a spot in the line-up. Though an overwhelming favourite of Fringe jury members—which included Centaur artistic director Roy Surette—they wondered about the likelihood of getting an act that hails from Australia to return to Montreal for just a few performances in a winter festival. Surette was impressed: “They said: ‘We’d like to! We’d like to!’ All power to them. They’re investing their own dime to get here and are doing a couple of other cities as well.”

Their show set the tone for the rest of the event as Surette, along with Andrew Shaver (of theatre collective SideMart Equity Co-op) picked out other entries, adding an extra day and expanding this year’s line-up to seven plays.

A few threads run through the programming, with solo works and plays originating a long way from Montreal highlighted. Die Roten Punkte travels here from the other side of the world, while Serge Bennathan’s The Invisible Life of Joseph Finch arrives from Vancouver. Music is also a big part of this year’s Wildside, with Zeppelin Was a Cover Band and The Ballad of the Young Offender (as well as the aforementioned Punktes) building their shows around songs.

BACK FOR MORE: Die Roten Punkte

Punktes and bullies

Surette walked me through this year’s fest and commented on the actors and creators.

Clare Bartholomew and Daniel Tobias (aka siblings Otto and Astrid Rot: Berlin’s Prince and Princess of Punk) have gotten plenty of well-deserved ink for their tight cabaret act Die Roten Punkte, which, despite the material, is really a lovely throwback to the polished comedy duos of the ’50s and ’60s—banter, music, jokes and audience interaction are all part of a sloppy-looking but carefully assembled show.

In their latest show, Super Musikant, songs like “Straight-Edge Girl” showcase the duo’s great shtick. Oh, and a German-speaking journalist told me the pronunciation: “dee row-ten poonk-tah.”

Serge Bennathan’s The Invisible Life of Joseph Finch, starring Jonathan Young, is a bittersweet story of a holocaust survivor that blends autobiography, childhood reminiscence and unspeakable memories.

“Jonathan is a fantastic performer, probably my favourite actor from Vancouver,” says Surette. “Writer-director Serge Bennethan is mostly known as a dance choreographer, but has been getting more into theatre. It’s beautiful, very poetic, and a strong solo piece. A remembrance that starts in the form of a letter.”

Joan MacLeod’s The Shape of a Girl is a story loosely based on the swarming and beating death of Victoria teenager Reena Virk in 1997. This staging, from the Geordie Productions’ School Tour, presents a revealing account of how bullying begins in childhood and “how effortlessly it evolves, and how destructive it becomes.” Fresh from maybe the best performance of the bunch in Urban Tales at the Centaur, Amanda Kellock returns to the director’s seat for this highly anticipated work.

“When I was at the Belfry Theatre in Victoria, we programmed the original production of this play,” says Surette. “It’s a beautiful piece of writing. Geordie’s a wonderful company and I like what they’ve been doing—so it was a combination: they were interested, it’s a really cool play, and me bringing something from home with Joan MacLeod’s work, because we’re old friends from out West.”

AFTER THE IRON CURTAIN: The Sputniks

Socrates rocks

In The Ballad of the Young Offender, writer-performer Patrick Costello “sets out to write a love letter to rock ’n’ roll ... a collage of early rock ’n’ roll mythology, beat poetry, fiery Americana and Greek tragedy.” Beginning with the trial and death of Socrates and ending in the whirlwind of the early ’60s, we travel with guitar-toting poet Johnny Hyacinth on a pilgrimage to save his mentor, a stoic old bluesman facing death for impiety, the corruption of youths and his passionate music.

“I’d seen the piece upstairs at Théâtre Ste-Catherine. Patrick’s wonderful. Again, really good writing, and the character is a music fan.”

Sahara Crossing, written and performed by Paul Van Dyck, promises a show filled with “voodoo magic, Muslims and malaria.” A smug young man zigzags his way across Africa, intent on a carefree getaway. As he progresses, Western notions about the Dark Continent and fanciful dreams of adventure begin to fall away.

“I’m a fan of Paul—he did a large-cast musical last year, The Cyclops. This is a travel story,” Surette explains. “He had quite a harrowing experience and he documented it so well—he’s a great storyteller.”

NOT A WHOLE LOTTA LOVE: Zeppelin Was a Cover Band

Zeppelin and Sputnik

Stéfan Cédilot and Ben Kalman’s Zeppelin Was A Cover Band is the anglo version of the French-language hit from the 2007 Montreal Fringe. Combining scholarly presentation and rockin’ performance, the show traces the history of the blues through songs, which Led Zep stole. Using audio clips dating back as far as the 1920s, Cédilot reveals how the group built their career on the backs of blues musicians.

“I’m an old Zeppelin fan, for sure. I love that show. I saw it at the Fringe and thought it was so informative.”

In The Sputniks, Moscow-born writer-actor Elison Zasko plays multiple characters in her story of a Soviet family’s escape from the Iron Curtain and their life as refugees, “leaving behind endless line-ups, home-made pickles and a simple place to call their home.”

“She recently relocated to Toronto, which is sort of a loss. It’s a beautiful piece—simple, sweet, intimate—a story about heritage and cultural difference,” Surette says. “It was great when she premiered it here, but I understand it got stronger. The response as she toured it across the country was excellent.”

Wrapping it up as he remarks on how the works develop by the time they reach Wildside, Surette concludes, “One of the things we discovered last year was that everybody felt they had a great opportunity to finesse what they had already worked on, to move it forward. That’s part of the whole idea.”

TEENAGE TORMENT: Shape of a Girl

THE 12TH ANNUAL WILDSIDE THEATRE
FESTIVAL, TO JAN. 25 AT CENTAUR
THEATRE (453 ST-FRANÇOIS-XAVIER),
(514) 288-3161
CENTAURTHEATRE.COM