He shoots, he slips

Yves Bélanger fails to score with Game

by AMY BARRATT

Forty years after John Osborne wrote Look Back in Anger, the Angry Young Man archetype is no longer young. But that's not stopping National Theatre School graduate Yves Bélanger from trying to breathe life into it. His first play, Game, in which he is currently starring at La Licorne, gives this by-now stock character a Gen-X, Québécois twist.

Game is the story of Alain, a rising hockey star whose career has been ended before it could really begin, by an accident. We never learn much about this accident except that doctors initially thought he might never walk again. At the start of the play, Alain has recovered to the point of walking without even a limp but, we're told, his knees are shot and he'll never play hockey again. Let the kvetching begin!

The other five characters, essentially there to help tell Alain's story, are tackled valiantly by the young cast. Julie McClemens plays Lucie, ostensibly Alain's girlfriend, although the two do little but argue. It's my impression that the character is written as a cold bitch and there's not much an actress can do to temper that. Luckily, McClemens looks good in underwear because her character seems compelled to discard clothing in every scene.

Then there's Michel, manager of the sporting goods store where Lucie works. Played by Pierre Dallaire, this guy is basically a weasel, so it's not a good sign that I found myself agreeing with his assessment of the hero: spoiled brat. Stéphane F. Jacques, as Alain's childhood buddy Bombo, has a sweetness of demeanour that makes you root for him even when he's doing stupid things. He's the only character who seems to grow at all in the course of the play, and he's the actor who screams the least--something I appreciated more and more as the evening went on.

The final two characters in the play are Alain's neighbours, a couple identified merely as Cul and Cul(e); rough translation, Asshole and Mrs. Asshole. They are loud, tacky, junk-food-scarfing stereotypes who, perversely, end up being the most human characters on stage. Natalie d'Anjou and Tony Conte play their roles to the hilt, but they serve no dramatic purpose except to introduce one piece of information that could have come from anywhere. Ironically, a scene in which Cul describes the birth of his son is the only glimpse of genuine tenderness in the play. This is a relief for the audience, but a problem for the play since it alienates us further from the whiny, belligerent Alain.

In a brief author's note in the program, Bélanger describes how he wrote the play one scene at a time, almost line by line, without knowing what would happen next. While this exercise has revealed a grasp of dramatic conflict and a strong ear for dialogue, I wouldn't recommend it as a writing technique. Though the running time of Game is less than two hours, sans intermission, there's a lot in the script that seems redundant.

Bélanger and his alter ego Alain play the same self-pitying note throughout the play. I left the theatre still not knowing why I should care.

Game, by Yves Bélanger, directed by Dominique Leduc, presented by Théâtre de la Prochaine Chicane and Momentum in co-production with Théâtre de la Manufacture, at La Licorne, 4559 Papineau, until Oct. 4.