Lost in place

>> Migration 1 moves but never quite arrives

by AMY BARRATT

Believe it or not, critics don't necessarily enjoy trashing stuff. Occasionally, a show is so full of itself that it's fun to poke a few holes in it. But more often, even when I don't like something, I'm moved by the obvious good intentions and hard work behind it. Such is the case with Migration 1, currently running at the MAI. Although I didn't particularly enjoy my evening, this trilingual (French-English-Spanish) theatre piece has quite a few things going for it, most notably the acting.

Presented by Ensemble Sauvage Public in co-production with the MAI, Migration 1 is a collective creation by three director-performers, a choreographer and quite a few more kibbitzers. Apart from the performers, three more people listed in the programme have "mise en scène"--direction--as part of their title. That's a lot of cooks.

The actors came to the rehearsal process with their own autobiographical material (relating to the theme of "migration") and ideas about how they wanted to tell their own stories. A 12-member production team then went to work to make a show out of it.

"For this creation, we chose to visibly juxtapose different points of view, rather than to mix and thus dilute the various points of view," announces a note in the programme--somewhat defensively, it seems to me. Although I can appreciate the desire not to "dilute," this philosophy of "juxtaposition" creates a situation where the three performers appear to be in three different plays. They never interact and the play is essentially three interwoven monologues.

Martin Choquette, a Québécois who has lived and worked abroad, uses a lot of physicality and tells his story with a strong dose of humour. Chilean-born Marcela Pizarro gives a straightforward account of a return to the land of her childhood. Her earnestness would be hard to take if Pizarro were not such an appealing performer. Cécile Lasserre's contribution is so "conceptual" that I couldn't tell you what the storyline is. From the programme I gather that she grew up between two cultures, français de France and English Canadian. Maybe a second viewing would make things clearer.

The black box theatre at the MAI has been arranged so that the playing space looks like a long corridor or runway. Lights are directed out from the walls at either end, often giving the impression of headlights. All of this, in keeping with the theme of migration, gives the impression of being between two places, in transit. The "environnement sonore," by Louis Frank, is depressingly similar to every other soundscape for every other experimental theatre piece. Obviously the theme of the piece doesn't allow for a closed ending, but it's frustrating to watch a play that never arrives anywhere.

The piece is called Migration 1 because this production is merely the beginning of its life. The show itself will be "migrating" around the globe over the next year. The company will travel to Russia, Mexico, Mali and Italy to work with a different director in each country. Finally, there will be another Canadian production of the metamorphosed work. Frankly, this sounds to me like democracy run amok. I can't see how all those additional cooks won't irreparably spoil the broth, unless one of those directors has the fascist streak necessary to pull all of the threads together and make a coherent whole out of this wispy work.

Migration 1, to Oct. 9 at Montreal, arts interculturels, Tues-Sat, 8:30pm; students $15, general $18. Info: 982-3386 or 842-6135