by AMY BARRATT

Fall is here and it’s time to kiss Canadian content goodbye. At least that’s the impression I get going through the press releases on my desk.

Playwright Kit Brennan’s Spring Planting, which has just opened at Village Theatre West in Hudson, is technically a summer-theatre offering, but I feel compelled to mention it here because it looks to be the last Canadian play we’ll be seeing for some time.

I’m sure that there are companies waiting in the wings with wonderful Canadian scripts—maybe even original scripts—under their arms, and I look forward to hearing from them. But, for the moment, it looks as though English theatregoers will be spending a good deal of time in the European Union this fall.

Take, for example, the mini-Shaw Festival going on in October. Infinitheatre artistic director Guy Sprung will be working his anti-establishment magic over at the Saidye when he directs Major Barbara for the main stage, Oct. 14–Nov. 2. Coincidentally—but they should really try to get some mutual promotion going—the National Theatre School’s graduating class will be tackling the old man’s Heartbreak House, Oct. 21–25, directed by Sarah Stanley. Incidentally, I erred recently when I wrote that Trent Pardy, who was Gravy Bath’s Coriolanus, was an NTS grad. He is in fact going into his last year, so presumably will be appearing in their shows this year—just one of many good reasons to check them out.

A group of Dubliners drops in to the Geordie space later this month with a play titled Keep Coming Back, by Rynagh O’Grady. This looks to belong to the life-is-shite-and-then-if-you’re-lucky-you-die strain of Irish theatre popularized by the likes of Martin McDonagh. The play, which is in the midst of a two-continent tour, received glowing reviews at the Edinburgh Fringe.

And speaking of Scotland, that country’s latest star playwright, if playwrights can ever be stars, will be featured here in a French translation. Gagarin Way by Gregory Burke is part of the line-up at La Licorne this fall, directed by Michel Monty of Trans-Théâtre.

TRUE COLOURS

Just in case you thought England didn’t have a wunderkind, Centaur is presenting Blue/Orange, an award-winning piece about race and psychiatry, by Joe Penhall. The Guardian called this “the funniest and most important new play” of 2001. (Centaur begins its season with a trip down under, with Australian playwright Hannie Rayson’s Life After George. I should mention in all fairness that Centaur has three Canadian plays coming up later in its season: Past Perfect by Michel Tremblay, The Drawer Boy by Michael Healey, and Tiger’s Heart… Kit Brennan again!)

The Tarantella is director Chris Abraham’s adaptation of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, with a little A Doll’s House thrown in. It will be at the Saidye Nov. 18–Dec. 7.

The Montreal Young Company is apparently back on its feet and preparing a November production, not at the Saidye but at the Bain St-Michel. I’ll let you know what the show is as soon as I get word.

Hope you like Hamlet because he’s un peu partout. Lit Moon Theatre Company of Santa Barbara, California, was the winner of the Centaur Showcase award at this year’s Fringe, and will be performing their modern, visually exciting Hamlet at the Centaur. Théâtre du Nouveau Monde is just getting its season underway with another purportedly “modern” interpretation, this one a Quebec-France co-production translated by Jean-Michel Desprats. After you’ve taken in both of those, there’s a chance you might need to go out to the West Island as Lakeshore Players present I Hate Hamlet Nov. 5–15. It’s a comedy by Paul Rudnick, aka Premiere magazine film reviewer Libby Gelman-Waxner.

Q Art Theatre is doing an English translation of Hungarian playwright Gyorgy Spiro’s Soap Opera starting Sept. 24 at the Monument-National. It stars Bobo Vian and Nicolas Wright, both seen recently in Gravy Bath’s New Classical Theatre Festival.

The French-language companies, meanwhile, are into bed-hopping this season. The TNM production of L’Odyssée, threatening to go on as long as the actual adventures of Ulysses, gets a remount at Théâtre Maisonneuve of Place des Arts; Quat’Sous’ Novecento pops up at Usine C, with both French and English versions. Des Fraises en janvier, originally seen at Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui, moves into the cavernous Théâtre Jean-Duceppe at PdA. Momentum’s acclaimed production of L’Inoublié, by and with Marcel Pomerlo, is currently running at La Licorne.

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