Hosanna: a powerful and touching production from TotoToo theatre
Photo. Maria Vartanova
When Hosanna by Michel Tremblay first appeared in French in 1973, it was often considered a metaphor for Quebec’s search for identity during the Quiet Revolution. Today, some 43 years after its explosive debut, it is more likely to be viewed as the gay equivalent of the rocky relationship between George and Martha (played by Elizabeth Taylor) in Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.
The play has a similar intensity and similar expressions of cruelty and, ultimately, of an enduring love that transcends the bitterness and squalor of daily life. Hosanna offers a more hopeful ending, but both plays deal with stripping away pretence and the layers of falsehood to come to a core of truth.
In the TotoToo Theatre production of Hosanna, directed by Jim McNabb, Barry Daley, in the title role, and John Collins as his biker/stud partner capture every emotion and connection in their fine and well-contrasted performances.
Daley, as the flamboyant, grotesquely made-up drag queen in his intentionally tawdry Cleopatra gear, and Collins, more subtle and withdrawn, in leather jacket, boots and jeans, are a terrific team — as they were in a previous TotoToo production, Confessions of a Mad Drag Queen.
