A fiendish play

>> Faust's long haul tests audiences' patience

by AMY BARRATT

Is it me or is this the year the summer festivals got out of hand? Doubtless the people who live in the neighbourhoods where the Jazz Fest and the Comedy Fest come to squat would say they lost control years ago. But really, it's gotten to the point where there's so damn much programming in these two particular festivals that even the publicists don't know how to handle it.

And just as it doesn't need to be jazz to play at the Jazz Fest anymore, it apparently no longer has to be comedy to play the comedy fest.

Last Thursday, opening night of Just for Laughs, I decided, quite arbitrarily, to check out a Belgian itinerant company called Les Baladins du miroir, in their version of Faust. I just can't get enough of shows performed in circus tents. Hey, it just occurred to me: maybe that's where my phobia of camping comes from: one whiff of that grassy, canvassy smell and I'm sure some frighteningly maquilléd acrobat is going to spring out of the woods and steal my marshmallows.

Anyway, the doors (flaps?) for what was supposed to be an 8 p.m. show didn't open till 10 after, and then spectators were allowed to wander in for another 20 minutes before the performance began. Barkers out on de Maisonneuve were enticing passers-by to come on in and have a look. Those who dropped the $10 on a whim soon discovered they'd made a terrible mistake. This Faust is not at all a "drop in and have a look" kind of show. It's more of a "hold you captive for three hours," hostage-situation type of thing.

It's not a bad show, but make no mistake, it is Faust--not Goethe's version but a new adaptation by Les Baladins founder Nele Paxinou, which is nearly as wordy. There is some light clowning, a few gentle acrobatics and some beautiful singing in what is billed as an "opéra forain," but the flow is constantly interrupted by static scenes heavy with dialogue.

Despite the colourful caravans in which the company is housed, this play is less suited to the carnival atmosphere in which it finds itself than to a slot in the TNM subscription season. There, people would sit politely through the 90-minute first act, repair to the lobby for a drink and return for Act Two. Here, in a tent, on a summer night, with a dozen other events going on right outside, it doesn't stand a chance. If I confess that I did not return to my seat after intermission, I was certainly not the only one.

At 10:05 p.m., I decided to wind my way through the weirdly illuminated streets of the Quartier Latin to get a sense of what else is going on inside the huge block from Ste-Dominique to St-Denis and de Maisonneuve to Sherbrooke that is closed to traffic every evening throughout the festival.

Here's what I saw: Giant bugs wielding torches; a guy in a loincloth with bells on his ankles playing violin and vocalizing; pit-stop mechanics washing the hair of passers-by with Pert shampoo, and the annoying local duo Special Blend. None of it made me go ha-ha-ha. More like aaaaahhhhhh!

On this final weekend, I'd check out something in the On the Edge series, particularly Scott Thompson's Lowest Show on Earth, or T.J. Dawe's The Slip Knot.

Faust continues through July 22 under the bigtop facing 180 de Maisonneuve E.;info: 790-HAHA