Cairo calls

>> Infinitheatre takes their Endgame to an international fest

by AMY BARRATT

Almost two years ago, Infinitheatre mounted a production of Samuel Beckett's Endgame/Fin de partie in an abandoned foundry in Griffintown. Those who saw it will recall the bilingualism, the stunning design by Catherine Bahuaud... but probably most vividly, they will recall the cold. Intrepid theatregoers wore coats, hats and gloves and huddled in blankets supplied by the company to combat the November chill.

Spectators shouldn't have the same problem when the production is remounted in September. That's because the company has been invited to present the show in the context of the Cairo International Festival of Experimental Theatre (CIFET). Yes, the Cairo that's in Egypt.

In fact, Infini received an invitation to CIFET in 2000, but it came too late for the company to amass the grant money needed for the trip. Festival organizers made it clear that the invitation would stand for another year, so early this spring Infini got to work digging up the money.

One week ago, they were still waiting on two-fifths of the requested funding, but Communications Director Heather Morrison assured the Mirror that the cast and crew would be going whether the money came through or not. The company estimated the total cost of the trip at $30,000.

The $18,000 already amassed comes from the provincial government's Ministre d'état aux relations internationales and the Ministre responsable de la francophonie, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the Canada Council for the Arts, and private donations. They hoped to receive the remaining $12,000 from the Canadian Cultural Affairs department and the city of Montreal. "It'll come out of our operating budget, if necessary," Morrison said.

CIFET actually learned about the Infini production from Montreal mayor Pierre Bourque. The festival contacted his office in 2000 to ask for recommendations of experimental theatre productions and Bourque mentioned Endgame. The show may have stuck out in his mind because of a last-minute confrontation with city fire safety officials that threatened to shut it down before it opened. The Infini show was chosen for CIFET based on a videotape supplied by the company. Infini is the first Canadian company to be invited to the festival, which will feature 70 shows from over 40 countries.

A production team flew to Cairo (with a stopover in Paris) earlier this week, and the performers will follow soon. The festival runs from Sept. 1-11, with Infinitheatre's three or four performances scheduled near the end.

According to Morrison, the festival secures a number of non-traditional performance spaces around the city prior to the festival, then tries to slot productions into appropriate spaces. "They have suggested an outdoor venue, an old Islamic courtyard, with balconies and columns." It sounds atmospheric, but not remotely similar to the dark, cold foundry that inspired Bahuaud's original design. As if the pressure weren't great enough, the crew has to find adapters for all their electrical equipment or else try to scrounge equipment once they arrive oversees.

"One of our biggest issues," Morrison adds, "is the garbage cans." The characters of Nagg and Nell spend the entire play in these receptacles. The Montreal production used large recycling bins. Not knowing if they would find an appropriate substitute in Cairo, the company was considering bringing their own bins on the 15-hour, 9,000-kilometre journey.

That's an absurdity Beckett himself would have appreciated.