Cape Breton invasion

>> MacIvor’s Cul-de-sac and MacDonald’s Divinity Bash/nine lives open this month

by AMY BARRATT

They’re a couple of Cape Breton boys who knew each other in high school. One was a self-confessed “theatre slut,” while the other denied any interest in the performing arts, figuring he’d be asking to be beat up. Both left for Toronto in their early twenties to pursue playwriting careers.

By sheer coincidence, Bryden MacDonald and Daniel MacIvor both have shows opening in town this month. MacDonald, former high school superstar, directs his own Divinity Bash/nine lives for Imago Theatre. Daniel MacIvor, along with perennial director-collaborator Daniel Brooks, is debuting a work-in-progress, Cul-de-sac, at Usine C, as part of the Théâtres du monde festival.

Though firmly based in Toronto, MacIvor has become a darling of our French theatre scene in recent years—despite the fact that he doesn’t speak French. He performed his intense one-man play Monster in English at Quat’Sous in ’99, and again wowed the critics and the public last year in the two-hander In on It, which he also directed.

Brooks and MacIvor came to town in April with just the idea for a piece about a neighbourhood as microcosm, with MacIvor playing all the parts. They had been offered a residency at Usine C. When Marie-Hélène Falcon got wind of this, she swiftly appropriated the show for her Théâtres du monde festival. MacIvor is sounding a tad jumpy about the whole thing.

“We don’t usually show work at this stage, at least not in the Big City,” he explains. “I’d imagined a low-pressure, casual month to put some ideas together. I’ve discovered that ‘low-key’ in Montreal means smoke a lot of Gitanes and scream your head off.” He describes Cul-de-sac as being about the “nature of the outsider” as well as the nature of participants in theatre. Though he’s not keen on the term “community,” MacIvor sees all of us who do theatre or go to theatre as belonging to a “neighbourhood.”

Whores and bag ladies

Despite having moved here about a year and a half ago, MacDonald is the lesser-known quantity in our fair city, but the buzz is good. An earlier production of Divinity Bash, which he directed for the National Arts Centre and Neptune Theatre, received glowing reviews. The production opening tonight, May 9, is a whole new one, with all Montreal actors and designers.

Divinity Bash is about the weird strength and even beauty of people living on the fringes of society. “I’ve always been more attracted to whores and bag ladies than to businessmen,” says the playwright, “though they’re all in this play.”

With a cast of nine, Divinity Bash is not the kind of play that gets picked up by many subscription houses (too expensive). So MacDonald is grateful to Imago’s Clare Shapiro for taking a chance on the show. This is a crucial production for Imago, with the potential to restore the 20-year-old company to its former glory as a top alternative anglo company, or to send it into debt from which it might never recover.

The impressive cast for Divinity Bash includes Marc Beaupré, Sarah Carlsen, Diana Fajrajsl, Alex Ivanovici, Omari Newton, and Jean-Pierre Pérusse. The design team consists of Ana Cappelluto, Alexander McSweeney, Spike Lyne and Tiffany Oshmann. :

Divinity Bash/nine lives, through May 26 At the Monument-National duMaurier Theatre, $15-18, 871-2224 Cul-de-sac, May 16–18 at Usine C, $20–26,
521-4493, 844-2172, 790-1245