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Road to the MECCAs >> Critics say something positive for a change
by AMY BARRATT
With a new theatre season already upon us, the motley crew with the high-falutin' name, Montreal English Critics Circle, convened to bestow some awards on the theatre practitioners who moved us during the 199899 season. Without too much scratching and biting, the 10 of us were able to agree on winners in 10 categories: For Best Professional Production (defined as having a decent budget and paying union-scale), we narrowed the field to two shows: Centaur's Waiting for Godot and the Other Theatre's Human Collision/Atomic Reaction, presented by the Festival de Théâtre des Amériques (FTA). Ultimately, we decided that the shows were too different to compare, and agreed to split the award between them. For the Best Amateur or Semi-professional show (encompassing everything else), we chose Call Me, a charming new play about telephone dating services, written by and starring Lana Starchuck. The MECCA goes to the company, Stark Raving Mad Productions. Other productions receiving praise included Arbat Theatre's The Glass Menagerie, and Elysian River's Surviving Wor(l)ds. Not surprisingly, when it came to Best Director, we chose to share the award between Stacey Christodoulou for her work on Human Collision, and Ben Barnes for Godot. The Best Actress category yielded many admirable performances. Nominations included Starchuck and Catherine Lemieux, both for Call Me and a completely different performance in Leaf in the Mailbox, Janine Theriault for her Laura in Glass Menagerie, and Eleanor Noble's Sandy in Centaur's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. But the MECCA goes to veteran Canadian actress Nicola Cavendish for her starring role in Michel Tremblay's For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again, at Centaur. Best Actor was essentially a three-way race between Aron Tager in Arthur Miller's The Price, at Saidye, Peter Batakliev as Lucky in Godot, and David Francis in Sleuth, also at the Saidye. The MECCA goes to Francis, a fine, underused local actor. Best New Play went to Teaching Shakespeare, a tight monologue by Keir Cutler (Fringe Fest), over Human Collision, Call Me, Surviving Wor(l)ds and The Lonely Cowboy (by Eric Goulem). The award for Best Visiting Production went to House/Lights, performed by New York's Wooster Group at the FTA. The Best "Look" category was a no-brainer. The design team of Eo Sharp (set and costumes), and David Perreault Ninacs (lighting) were responsible both for Human Collision/Atomic Reaction and Sin 4's Looking for Romeo. The award goes to the pair for the two shows. The nominees in the catch-all category of Revelation/Distinction grew so plentiful that we decided to split it in two: Someone who surprised and delighted us would get the "Revelation" award, while "Distinction" would go to someone who had made a significant impact on the theatre scene, this year, and over time. In the latter category, we chose Rahul Varma for his tireless efforts, as playwright and artistic director of Teesri Duniya, to bring about dialogue between cultural groups. Under "Revelation" we considered the Urban Dream Capsule, that Australian installation piece in the Bay window. But ultimately chose to acknowledge the work of Peter Batakliev, a brilliant physical actor who blew us away with his tragic performance in Godot. Each winner will receive a certificate signed by the participating critics. Unfortunately, there is no cash attached to these awards; in the future, we hope to attract sponsors so as to offer the winners a little something more than our gratitude for bringing a little joy, as Lena Lamont would say, into our humdrum lives. |
The hot air was really rising one night last week when a group of English theatre critics met in the basement of a St-Denis eatery.