Romeo found

>> Joseph Khaiata's stylish play should be harbinger of Queer Fest

by AMY BARRATT

Ladies and gentlemen, dykes and fags: I have a vision of a great festival.

I see a great cultural extravaganza taking over the city the way the Jazz and Just for Laughs do, but later in the summer, after all the others fests have left, wagging their Labatt Blues behind them. In the sweaty, bittersweet days of August, I see a great celebration of queer culture, boys and girls. Queer Fest.

The seeds of this vision are in this year's Divers/Cité celebrations, which for the first time featured visual art, dance and theatre shows.

If the play Looking for Romeo, by Joseph Khaiata, is any indication of things to come, a true queer cultural festival may be just around that next bend in the yellow brick road. Looking for Romeo is quite simply one of the most stylish shows--English or French--that I have seen in the city this year.

Nobody ever accused gay men of lacking style. Would this Romeo have substance too, I wondered. The answer is yes. No political diatribe, Looking for Romeo has something very human to say and does it by showing us a few fragile, flawed human beings in a specific setting.

The play focuses on four young dancer-escorts all working in the same gay club. Romeo (played by Khaiata), has fallen into sex work after being disowned by homophobic parents. Rick (Antoine Mongrain) stays because he needs the money to support a growing drug habit. Pete (Peter Thom) genuinely likes the life, mistaking all the sex for the love he really craves. Dan (Daniel C. Brochu) is the straight man of the quartet, who supposedly began to dance at the urging of his ex-girlfriend. It's not clear exactly why he stays. Of the four, Romeo is the most clearly drawn character, Dan the least.

Brochu, a talented actor, has been the victim of some eccentric casting lately. First he played the thankless role of a ghost in The Farm, and now he's cast as a one-dimensional homophobe. It doesn't help that Brochu is the shortest of the four actors onstage; as the embodiment of society's hatred, someone bigger and bulkier would have made a more threatening choice.

To his already long list of credits on this production (producer, director, writer, actor), Khaiata should add choreographer. Not only is there a beautiful and funny sex-in-the-park ballet, but he gets the actors moving bits of the set around in a dance of their own.

The mobile columns that provide the basis of Eo Sharp's set are a revelation. Mirrors on three sides allow images onstage to be repeated and splintered in countless ways; they can also reflect the audience back at itself, implicating us in the action. Fabric on the fourth side allows them to become a screen for projected images.

And there's the opening slide sequence, beautifully photographed by Kirk Wight. Any company looking for a good publicity photographer need look no further than this Winnipeg import. Wight is also responsible for a very effective sound design. Opening night on this technical show went off without a glitch thanks to tech director Steve Schon.

Bravo to Sin 4 Productions for reflecting the community back to the community with such style, and in the process creating theatre that can hold its own anywhere.

Looking for Romeo continues to August 15, excluding Monday August 9, at 8:30pm at Montreal arts interculturel (MAI). Adults $15, students $12. Tickets/info: 989-1360