Immaculate
production

Michel Marc Bouchard’s The Madonna
Painter finally makes its way to the
Montreal anglo stage

LOOKING FOR AN INTERVENTION:
Jean Leclerc and Graham Cuthbertson in The Madonna Painter

by NEIL BOYCE

His work has been translated into 10 languages, he’s won every major theatre award in Canada and Quebec (and several abroad), has had his plays made into films, and was made Officer of the Order of Canada in 2005. All to say, Michel Marc Bouchard’s a big deal in theatre—and a work staged here in English for the first time is also a big deal.

Roy Surette directs The Madonna Painter (subtitled The Birth of a Painting) for Centaur, his cast a mix of talented Montreal stage actors, TV veterans and two Vancouver artists (Alessandro Juliani and Meg Roe) who—and this must be a first—also wrote the sound and music for the piece.

Set in Lac Saint-Jean following the First World War, Bouchard’s story centres on a young priest (played by Graham Cuthbertson) seeking an intervention, divine or otherwise, to save the tiny town from a looming Spanish flu epidemic. He commissions a visiting artist (Juliani) to paint an image of the Virgin Mary, and the artist in turn begins a search for a perfect model among the townspeople: he finds four village women, all named Mary, each of whom claims to have received a vision.

The cast and director have just moved from rehearsal room to the Centaur stage, with Pierre-Etienne Locas’s abstract, organic set made of water, metal and earth now in place. The chief difference? “There’s more places now to fall down,” Surette quips.

Toronto’s Factory Theatre scooped the Centaur by a few months with their recent premiere, but The Madonna Painter already had a circuitous history, starting out in Italian in 2002, sponsored by Florence’s Teatro della Limonaia, where Bouchard was artist-in-residence. The playwright later brought the French version home to rave reviews at Espace GO. Now, after a successful Toronto run, it opens at last, in what seems a peculiar Montreal phenomenon, in English in Quebec.

“Bouchard took the opportunity,” Surette says, “as he often does when translating a work, to rewrite it a lot, so there’s quite a few major changes to the work that was done here in French.”

“I love his plays,” Surette adds. “They’re exotic, they’re operatic—they provide all sorts of ambitious challenges for actors, directors and designers.”

Stefanie Buxton, playing the mayor’s daughter and one of the “Marys,” is overjoyed. “I love it. Earlier, I was saying to Jean Leclerc,” who, Buxton explains, plays a sinister doctor named The Butcher, “not to sound too flaky, but it’s a dream come true for me. I’ve always wanted to do a Michel Marc Bouchard play.”

They’re at the point, she continues, where they can’t wait for it to begin. “We’re getting excited to share this. We’re still tweaking and figuring things out, but we need to start getting people in the house. It feels like that time is coming. It’s good.”

VILLES MORTES

Vues sur la relève, a yearly occasion to see the fresh faces in our performing arts scene, opens this week. Musicians, dancers, actors and circus artists fill out a showcase that runs until mid-April.

A few anglo dance companies (sadly, no English-language theatre) are scattered throughout the schedule, alongside discussions on the current state of the arts, “Tête-à-tête” evenings, etc. Look out for Villes mortes, from up-and-comers Abat-Jour Théâtre (April 6, Lion d’Or). Schedule at vuesurlareleve.com.

THE MADONNA PAINTER TO MAY 2 AT
CENTAUR THEATRE (453 ST-FRANÇOISXAVIER),
INFO: (514) 288-3161