Ottawa Fringe 2011: Life Presents a New Fictional Reality
First of all read this note from the Banff school web site:
Maureen LaBonté is a dramaturge, translator, teacher, and program coordinator. She was named head of the Banff Playwrights’ Colony in 2006, after working there as resident dramaturge since 2003. From 2002 to 2004, she was literary manager overseeing play development at The Shaw Festival. From 1993-2001, she worked at the National Theatre School of Canada where she developed and ran a two-year pilot Directing program and then coordinated the NTSC’s Playwriting program and Playwrights’ residency. She has translated more than 30 Québécois plays into English
Here in Ottawa we know Maureen very well because she was an important presence as a translator for many years. So, imagine my surprise and near shock when Maggie Matian as Jenny, gets up and tells us that Maureen Labonté died of breast cancer and here on stage we see her two sons Jacob and Curtis trying to deal with their grief a year later. There were some video films showing faces that were not those of the actors so I assumed that they had filmed actors while the real sons were on stage. It all seemed to fit because there people on stage seemed so awkward that they could not possibly have been actors. They were in fact the real family of Maureen Labonté dealing with their grief. I thought to myself how courageous! This is a form of new stage realism, testimony theatre telling us of the life of their mother and the family’s way of seeking closure. All this fits into a new trend of REALITY on stage that in fact denies the traditional vision of theatre as fiction that has its own particular conventions.
Well, I was had!
The author of the show said oh no! He picked that name at random. This Maureen Labonté was a name that had nothing to do with a real person. And all my theories collapsed! At that point my review became much easier.
This is a study of grief, how it affects the younger sons who have great difficulty dealing with a mother’s death and the younger one falls into a deep depression.
Both sons in fact, find themselves questioning their own behaviour and trying to understand their difficult relation with a violent father who was an alcoholic and who battered the mother. At the same time the younger 17 year old begins questioning his sexual identity. All resulting anguish brings about a suicide attempt. In spite of the tragic ending, we see an older brother and his wife trying to comfort the younger sibling Jacob, and it is all enhanced with some video footage and music.
This piece is performed by three young actors who are at the beginning stages of a theatre training programme at Algonquin College. Curiously enough, their awkwardness on stage gives the performance a heightened realism but mainly it transforms this piece into a rather effective form of didactic theatre for teenagers who are dealing with such problems. It only held my attention because I was under the illusion that it was dealing with a real person. Teen agers are the perfect audience for such a work and I feel it might do very well if it toured schools in the context of a mental health awareness programme, showing young people that depression, bipolar problems and identity crises are very common occurrences.
Life
Written and directed by Alain Chauvin
Featuring Dillon Rogers, Aaron Lajeunesse, Maggie Matian and Mark MacDonald
Plays in Academic Hall. June 16 to 25.
Reviewed by Alvina Ruprecht
Ottawa, June 19 2011