Choeur avec les oranges. Mise en scène de Joël Beddows. Photo: Alexandra Campeau.

L’Atelier de l’Université d’Ottawa, s’inscrit dans une démarche à la fois artistique et savante, menée par le Centre de Recherche en civilisation canado-française.  Il s’agit pour ses animateurs de sortir des chemins battus du réalisme et de contribuer au renouvellement esthétique du théâtre franco-ontarien, tout en formant  une nouvelle génération de chercheurs et de praticiens s’intéressant à ce théâtre francophone hors  du Québec.
Le texte de Sarah Migneron tient  à la fois d’une partition pour voix, et d’un scénario de situations mises en espace par un chorégraphe (on parle de dramaturgie corporelle),  où se mêlent  les voix et les corps qui  font penser aux chorégraphies de la célèbre Martha Graham.

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Jean Marc Dalpé (Mercier) et Elkahna Talbi (Maha)

Photo: Mathieu Girard

II (Deux) de Mansel Robinson, traduction de Jean-Marc Dalpé, mise en scène de Geneviève Pineault.

Zones théâtrales, une  biennale qui regroupe des artistes des scènes  francophones du Canada, a présenté neuf spectacles créés  en Ontario,  Québec, et Acadie (Nouveau Brunswick). qui mettent en scène des  univers à la fois réalistes, singuliers et poétiques, qui s’ouvrent sur des aventures intérieures des plus troublantes.
Deux textes ont retenu l’attention :  II (Deux)  de Mansel Robinson  (Toronto), traduit en français par le comédien et l’auteur dramatique  d’origine franco-ontarienne Jean-Marc Dalpé,  qu’il joue avec Elkahna Talbi. Et À tu et à moi de Sarah Migneron, avec onze comédiennes/danseuses  sur le plateau.  Chaque  spectacle fondé sur  un choix esthétique différent,  présente une réflexion sur le processus de jeu et l’orientation de l’acteur dans l’espace.

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Photo by  Justin Van Leeuwen

Charles Marowitz , collaborating with Peter Brook, reduced Shakespeare’s plays to 30 minutes and now Margo MacDonald has reduced Richard II, Henry IV parts 1& 2, and Henry V to two hours and forty-five minutes, including intermission. I`m not suggesting that MacDonald is Peter Brook, far from it but the idea is not new. Still it is an enormous feat of dramaturgy.  Here, she transports us into a punk style hideout of rebels and would be performers. Vanessa Imeson’s costumes, puppets and set design play a central role in this space where history appears to be telescoped forward and backward through time. A graffiti covered portrait of Queen Victoria is stuck up on the walls of what appears to be a backstage area that conveniently becomes a public house, a battle field, the throne room of Henry IV, and various other spaces that house the main events of these four historical plays that MacDonald has collapsed into a single evening as the rough old punks batter the monarchy and take a good swipe at all the institutions of her majesty- Victoria or Elizabeth II. It is not clear but it does not matter.

Prince Hal (Katie Ryerson) sporting a mangy looking dead skunk on his/her head) carouses with his mates at the local tavern along with the huge Sir John Falstaff (Matthew John Landfall), Ned Points (Simon Bradshaw) the tavern wench (Geoff McBride) and other amusing creatures. Hal’s father King Henry IV (Geoff McBride) terribly disappointed with his debauched offspring wishes his son would have been more like Percy (John Doucette) who is stirring up a conspiracy against him in the North, with some disgruntled English Lords and some Scottish lords, namely Glendower (McBride again!) and that hairy creature from the highlands Douglas (played by Melanie Karin).

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John Collins and Barry Daley. Photo by Bruce Ecroyd

Drag makes excellent theatre! Take for instance the ground breaking Hosanna (Richard Monette performed the title role in Tremblay’s play, in English, at Stratford many years ago), or La Duchesse de Langeais, that heartbreaking campy monologue by Michel Tremblay interpreted by that great actor Claude Gai who made the role his own. More recently there was that French production of the Changing Room at the NAC which delved more closely into the various possibilities of Drag identities which was extremely revealing as “real” drags and “phony” drags cohabited the stage and the audience was left totally perplexed t trying to figure it all out.

These performances are, after all, about the essence of theatre: dressing up and assuming various roles, even various identities while hiding other identities. David Blue, the playwright has clearly been reading a lot of theatre based on campy drag performance because his text is full of references to so many other similar plays and works by gay writers such as Tennessee Williams as well as female models of female impersonators, that this work almost becomes a compilation of all the stereotypical utterances one could imagine, especially in Act I. It therefore needs a lot of pairing down. I think this play could lose at least 20 minutes and still be just as effective, in fact it might even be stronger. Listening to Miranda Rights (an extraordinary performance by Barry Daley) extolling the virtues of Bette Davis and other icons of female impersonators has something almost pathetic about it when we see what a frump Mme Miranda has really become.

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Hungarian puppeteer Andres Lenart during the Mikropodium show at the 9th season of the Puppets Up! International Festival in Almonte on August 10th and 11th,

Photograph by: Bruno Schlumberger, Ottawa Citizen

More comments coming…Performance on Sunday at 4pm in the Ultramar  Theatre in  Almonte.