by AMY BARRATT

Is Usine C - home of Carbone 14 and host to many offbeat theatre and dance events - muscling in on the FTA’s territory? Hélène Falcon’s Festival de Théâtre des Amériques has long distinguished itself by bringing in experimental theatre from around the corner and around the world. Now, through an association with Toronto’s Six Stages Festival, Usine C seems to be aspiring to something similar.

Australia’s William Yang presented his one-man show The North at the FTA in 1997. Now, he returns to Montreal as part of a Canadian tour with Shadows, which he performs in English tonight through Saturday at Usine C.

Yang’s work explores racism and issues of identity. His earlier shows were based on his own family’s experience as Chinese-Australians. Shadows, commissioned by the Sydney and Adelaide festivals, looks at similar issues, but through the experiences of two very different cultural groups, the Aborigines of New South Wales and the immigrant German community of South Australia, which suffered persecution during two world wars.

Yang’s unsentimental, gently humorous monologues are accompanied by hundreds of slide projections including many portraits taken by Yang himself of people he has met in his travels. He is joined onstage by composer-musician Colin Offord, who supports Yang’s storytelling with vocal and instrumental music. Shadows has played to critical acclaim throughout Australia and in many other countries.

Androgynous dream

Also fresh from Six Stages by way of Los Angeles and Edmonton is Quebecer Marie Brassard’s Jimmy, créature de rêve, which she will perform for the first time in English in Montreal on February 26 and 27. A longtime Robert Lepage collaborator, Brassard first presented this solo show, the story of an androgynous character who only exists in the dreams of others, at the 2001 FTA. She has since performed French and English versions of it to glowing reviews in Germany, Scotland, Ireland, France and Belgium. Ian Kilroy of the Irish Times called Jimmy, “Vital, world-class theatre not to be missed,” and, “the best thing I’ve seen this year.”

Lose your mind

A new English theatre company - with a French name - made its appearance on the scene last night. Le Nouveau théâtre anglais (bless them for not calling themselves “anglophone”) presents Still Once, an original play by Montrealer Thomas Morison and directed by Michael Springate. Many members of the cast and crew have been friends and colleagues for over 20 years dating back to their days in the theatre program at Concordia.

The stellar cast is led by Harry Standjofski as the misanthropic Howard. Diana Fajrajsl is his long-suffering wife; Stéphane Zarov is his bicycle-riding friend Vern; Laura Mitchell plays a timid yet provocatively dressed neighbour, and Emma Stevens is a beggar whom no one sees. Billed as a tragicomedy, Still Once contains intriguing lines like, “Why would anyone want to die for their beliefs? I’d rather change my mind. Or lose it.” :

Shadows, Feb. 13 - 15, 8pm at Usine C (1345 Lalonde), $20/$25, 521-4493

Jimmy, English version: Feb. 26 - 27, French version: Feb. 28 & March 1, 8pm at Usine C. $20/$26, 521-4493

Still Once, to March 2 at Theatre La Chapelle (3700 St-Dominique). Tues - Sat 8pm, Sun 7pm, $12 - $18 (pay what you can on Tuesdays), 843-7738

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