Lesbians, language and hard-boiled dicks

>> The Top 10 productions of '97

by AMY BARRATT

Let's be truthful here: I didn't see every play produced in Montreal in 1997. Even in the four months I've been doing this job, I've missed a lot, simply due to the sheer volume of shows. To make things slightly more fair, I've chosen my top six productions and brought in guest critics to round out the Top 10.

A Fertile Imagination

Susan Coles's play about a lesbian couple discovering the joys of artificial insemination is very funny, if clumsily written in places, and Street People's production had a lot going for it, including strong performances by locals Jane Wheeler and Sonia Patenaude. Any lesbian play produced during Divers/Cité would have been cause for rejoicing. A lesbian play with belly laughs--well! Now do you see why it makes my list?

Jack's Giant Adventure/Then & Now

I'm cheating a bit by lumping these two Geordie shows together as one pick. Jack's Giant Adventure, a new spin on Jack and the Beanstalk by Adam Furfaro and Steve Thomas, is a mini-musical featuring a dancing cow with a red-hot-mama voice; Then & Now, by award-winning playwright Anne Chislett, makes Canadian history and language tensions not only palatable and relevant to young audiences, but entertaining, if you can believe it! Geordie doesn't get enough credit for its consistently high-quality shows. This year's multi-talented cast (they do both shows) consists of Eric Davis, Michelle Heisler, Ryan Hollyman, Marni Shuster and Robert van der Linden.

The Concrete Aftertaste

Local actor-comedian Stephen Beauregard chose this Fringe spoof of the hard-boiled detective genre. Written and directed by Sam Ruano, it was presented by Portico Blue Productions. "Yeah, sure," muttered Beauregard over his glowing cigarette, a shadow falling across his fedora. "Two-bit punks and dancehall dames. Not bad. Not bad at all."

A Little Night Music

Corey Castle, a local director who specializes in musicals, sang the praises (yuck yuck) of Da Capo's production of this Stephen Sondheim piece, as directed by Brent Krysa. "Set, lighting, costumes--everything about it was strong," says Castle. "The singing was great--and this isn't a show where you can fake it!"

Never Swim Alone

This Daniel MacIvor play presents many challenges. The playwright doesn't spell a lot out in stage directions so it's up to the company to establish the rules of the game and really situate this drama. All of which Imago Theatre achieved admirably at Geordie Space. Their production was simple, clean and beautifully acted by Andrew Burr, Cory Fantie and Paula-Jean Hixson.

Le Nombril du monde

I can't help it. I loved the way Yves Desgagnés' play poked fun at the pomposity of the professional theatre scene. And the timing of the production--coming right on the heels of Espace Go's horribly pretentious Quai Ouest--couldn't have been better. Desgagnés gave us a cast of lovingly exaggerated theatre types in this backstage comedy, not to mention the irresistible Rita Lafontaine as the earth mother from the boonies who brings a dose of reality into the rarefied air of "les coulisses."

A November to Remember

I'm cheating once again by making this four-week long series a single pick. The Theatre 1774 event was like Fringe Distilled, bringing back many of the best shows from last summer (and before), including Patrick Goddard's The Baumgard Cuckoos, Jonathan Sprung's Bone Cold and See Bob Run with Julie Tamiko Manning. The Infinite Space on St-Laurent was the most exciting place to be, theatrically speaking, all month long.

Two Pianos, Four Hands

Guess I have a weakness for original scripts, because here's another one. There really wasn't any more to it than a couple of grand pianos and two terrific performers (Ted Dykstra and Richard Greenblatt), but that was enough to propel this show across Canada (with a run at Centaur along the way) and into an off-Broadway run.

Lips Together, Teeth Apart

This Saidye Bronfman Centre production is the pick of a dear friend who, due to a "complicated relationship" with several theatre companies about town, wishes to be identified simply as Miss Caswell.

"Terrence McNally's provocative play, as helmed by Olivier Reichenbach, was truly theatre for grownups," says the enigmatic Miss C. "It had grownup fears, grownup bad behaviour, and--could it be?--grownup hope. Intelligently rendered by director and cast, with splendid lighting, set and sound design, it proved that theatre doesn't have to be self-consciously avant-garde to be cool." Anything else, Miss C.? "Yes. Everybody into the pool!"

The Winter's Tale

The review of this Centaur production comes courtesy of my mother, Libby: "The cast was remarkably even, the action was fluid and it was visually exciting. The costumes had a quasi-medieval, quasi-mythological look that didn't situate them definitely in one period: just right for a magical play like this."