Back to the boards

Horses, princes and spelling bees get a spot in the limelight

The fall theatre season roars back to life after a somnambulant summer. Peter Shaffer’s Equus, now underway, opens the Segal season. It’s the second Montreal production in six months of the compelling drama that examines the passion and madness of a boy who’s blinded by six horses, and of the psychiatrist who tries to treat him. A parting gift arranged by former artistic director Bryna Wasserman, the show has London-based director/choreographer Domy Reiter-Soffer overseeing a cast featuring venerable Quebec actor Jean Mar-chand (to Oct. 2).

The Centaur kicks off with Colleen Curran’s True Nature (previews begin Oct. 4), directed by Amanda Kellock. Curran’s fact-based play about the love between two palaeontologists revolves around Mary Anning, an early pioneer in the field and inspiration for the tongue twister, “She sells seashells by the seashore.”

Black Theatre Workshop have just one mainstage production a year, but it’s usually a highlight of the season. Tanzanian-Canadian Joan M. Kivanda’s Stori Ya is a one-woman memory play where the audience members are invited guests at a dinner party—the final one before the host’s home is repossessed. Millie Tresierra directs Warona Setshwaelo at the MAI (opens Nov. 16).

Infinithéâtre open their hearts and swimming pool theatre to guest company Teesri Duniya for their fall opener, The Poster, by Philippe Ducros (from Nov. 17). Arianna Bardesono directs this look at the Israeli/Palestinian conflict via the images of martyrs found on walls throughout Palestine. The original French version of the play, L’Affiche, was a finalist for France’s 2009 Grand prix de la dramaturgie and was awarded Play of the Year by the Association québécoise des critiques de théâtre.

Geordie remounts Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince (from Oct. 11) at the Centaur. The show’s got a stellar cast with Daniel Brochu as the lead, along with Harry Standjofski, Marcel Jeannin, Danielle Desormeaux and Chip Chuipka—any of whom I’d happily watch read the phone book.

SPELLING BEES AND PRISON TERMS

Processed Theatre’s The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee continues to Sept. 24 at the MainLine. This musical about six young brainiacs was a most unlikely Tony Award-winning hit in 2005.

Imago Theatre cruise into their 25th anniversary with Ana at Espace Go, a Quebec-Scotland co-production with Edinburgh’s Stellar Quines Theatre (from Nov. 22). The story parallels an ancient Sumerian goddess’s underworld journey through “dark and shadowy perils into the light” with “the plight of women’s suffering throughout the ages.” Unlike the previous production, this doesn’t sound like it would make a good musical.

The good times continue with Unfit For Bears: Beyond the Walls of Canada’s Prison For Women, from Zeitgeist Theatre Collective. Workshopped as P4W in 2010, writer-director Julia Ainsworth readies this stage version examining Canada’s notorious, now shut-down federal prison for women. It’s on till Sept. 24 at Les Ateliers Jean-Brillant.

Pierre-Michel Tremblay’s Coma Unplugged looks at what goes on in the mind of a man following a traffic accident. His mom, his ex-wife and Stephen Hawking guest star in the Talisman The­atre production at Studio Jean-Valcourt du Conservatoire d’art dramatique (from Oct. 20).

Finally, India Kim, Damien McRae’s road play about the search for a lost love opens Sept.19 at Théâtre Ste-Catherine; and later in the month, Dan Bingham’s excellent Fringe confessional Adopt This! returns with a three-night run beginning Sept. 29. ■

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