Author: Alvina Ruprecht

Alvina Ruprecht is professor emerita from Carleton University. She is currently adjunct professor in the Theatre Department of the University of Ottawa.She has published extensively on francophone theatres in the Caribbean and elsewhere. She was the regular theatre critic for CBC Ottawa for 30 years. She contributes regularly to www.capitalcriticscircle.com, www.scenechanges.com, www.criticalstages.org, theatredublog.unblog.fr and www.madinin-art.net.
The Blue Man Group is Back with Their Immense Talent and Boundless Imagination.

The Blue Man Group is Back with Their Immense Talent and Boundless Imagination.

 

They aren’t white;  they aren’t black; they aren’t blotchy, wrinkled or suntanned and they don’t have acne. Their hair isn’t blond, brown, black or red. It isn’t curly or straight, long or short. They are  three blue, hairless bodies, they are heads  covered with a gooey substance that comes off if you touch it. They don’t talk, they have deadpan faces, big wide eyes and they catch things with their mouths.

They look human but not like any human being you have ever seen. They are not supposed to be aliens because they understand the world around them. They  live in their own space, redefining  their own art form, as they observe our human world, trying to critique  what we do in our world by turning  all current performance art on its head. They are actors, mime artists, percussionists, dancers, visual artists, graphic artists, choreographers, sound designers. They are scientists, sculptors, ethnologists, computer specialists, and comedians! The list is long and unending.  Their talents are immense and their imagination  is boundless.

Read More Read More

Beauté, chalheur et mort: un théâtre thérapeutique se marie à une réflexion sur la représentation du réel.

Beauté, chalheur et mort: un théâtre thérapeutique se marie à une réflexion sur la représentation du réel.

beaute_474

Nini Bélanger est metteuse en scène, Pascal Brullemans est auteur dramatique. Dans Beauté, chaleur et mort, le couple – nous apprenons à la fin du spectacle qu’il s’agit bien d’un couple-se retrouve ensemble en scène pour la première fois, dans leur propre spectacle. Ils avaient en effet besoin de créer un événement thérapeutique après la mort de leur bébé.
Professionnels du théâtre, ils ont donc pris la décision de marier la difficulté de raconter la mort d’un enfant,  et une réflexion sur la représentation du réel au théâtre. Résultat :une œuvre hyperréaliste où une intimité minimaliste accompagne  une  réflexion sur le rapport entre  réel et temps scénique… Ils se rendent  alors compte que la durée prolongée  et répétée d’une activité douloureuse en scène, transforme la perception de cet événement en un moment profondément « réel » pour le spectateur.

Read More Read More

Three Sisters: A Lively Production by the Drama Guild at the University of Ottawa.

Three Sisters: A Lively Production by the Drama Guild at the University of Ottawa.

This contemporary  adaptation of Three Sisters which fore grounds all the  potentially bitter sweet  humour in Chekhov’s world, brings  together comedy,  pathos and even  near  tragedy  in a  lively production  by the Drama Guild at Ottawa University, directed and adapted by Peter Froehlich.   One of  Chekhov’s most important plays, Three Sisters,  written near the end of his life (first produced in 1901), has not been  shortened, according to the director,  although given the snappy pace of it all and the comic relief laced with drama that carries it along, one has the impression that this version is much shorter than other versions have been.

Read More Read More

Les Outardes (The Wild Geese) is back in Hull as fresh and as endearing as it was when it first appeared.

Les Outardes (The Wild Geese) is back in Hull as fresh and as endearing as it was when it first appeared.

Gaby Déziel-Hupé,’s ground breaking play, Les Outardes (The Wild Geese)  has come back to Hull/Gatineau were it was first produced in 1969. Gilles Provost, former director the Le Théâtre de l’Ile (that charming little theatre and former water works  perched on an island in the middle of  Brewers Creek), has remounted a community production of the play which was the  first production of the theatre when it opened in 1976. Julie Giroux’s attractive but simple farm house with the decorations and the way it captures the rural feel by sending us off to different parts of the house  creating a sense of space that engages the imagination.

Read More Read More

The Midwinter’s Dream Tale: The Sparkling Frozen World of Oberon and Tatiana as Background for a Brilliant Clown Show!

The Midwinter’s Dream Tale: The Sparkling Frozen World of Oberon and Tatiana as Background for a Brilliant Clown Show!

Fools5802303.bin

Margo MacDonald (Restes)  and Scott Florence (Pommes frites)

The Company of Fools has returned with The Midwinter’s Dream Tale, that Shakespearean parody that fuses Midsummer Night’s Dream into The Winter’s Tale, transforming the fairy tale world of Oberon and Tatiana into a sparkling, frozen and fairly brilliant clown show.  The clowns become the narrative links in that rather nasty story about the, narcissistic and  jealous  Fairy King Oberon, who tries to destroy the   Fairy Queen’s baby because he is not convinced it is his own.  In a jealous rage, he sends the baby off to be drowned. What follows is the frantic flight away from the king, the frantic search for the child, all accompanied by a desire for  vengeance, and  the appearance of a whole parade of strange creatures including love sick fairies, the fluffy abominable snow creature, a silvery very in your face Puck, a hugely pregnant Tatiana, a frozen wonderland of twinkling snowflakes and beasts whose eyes glow in the dark.  A magnificent show for the whole family with jokes that will amuse the younger children, and other jokes that will tickle the funny bones of the adults.  It speaks to everyone.

Read More Read More

Brown gravy…This episodic structure and the posting of food titles (Fish and ships!!) might suggest a tweaking of brechtian critical realism however, this is mainly all about language.

Brown gravy…This episodic structure and the posting of food titles (Fish and ships!!) might suggest a tweaking of brechtian critical realism however, this is mainly all about language.

brune386370_1015038968809725_221011962255_8958762_991764946_n

The audience howled and squealed with delight as long strings of “ostie”, “crisse”, and “tabarnak”. “ciboire”, “sacrament”, “viarge”, and “câlisse”, just for starters, rolled off the tongue of four   women in Simon Boudreault’s   play Brown Gravy that opened Wednesday night at La Nouvelle Scène.

Given the extensive use of intense Quebecois swear words, as well as the extremely graphics images   referring to various lower body parts, the evening was expected to irritate a few people. Jean Stéphane Roy, artistic director of La Catapulte who programmed Brown Gravy, told the public they could leave quietly by the side door if they found the language too strong.  No one left.

Read More Read More

Tremblay’s caracters weave their tail of booze and drunkenness: a Greek chorus materializes from the troubled mind of Marcel, persued by the Hounds.

Tremblay’s caracters weave their tail of booze and drunkenness: a Greek chorus materializes from the troubled mind of Marcel, persued by the Hounds.

Matt Smith and ManonMarcel Pursued by the Hounds Smith, Dumas, Lefebvre  Dumas in Marcel poursuivi par les chiens.

The Carleton Tavern is the  perfect venue for this  intense little drama by Michel Tremblay, which opened this weekend in Ottawa’s west end theatre district!  Marcel Pursued by the Hounds was first staged in French in  1992 and  this translation by John  Van Burek and Bill Glassco while not respecting the levels of popular vernacular that are so central to Tremblay,s plays, seems to give directors Lisa Zanyk and Donnie Laflamme, a lot of scope to play with language.  This play i  another one of  his works that completes the   geneology of all the characters who make up the extended  family of Albertine,  living on the Plateau in Montréal . 

Read More Read More

Une plongée dans l’abime médiatique par l’équipe de l’Ubu, compagnie de création au Cna.

Une plongée dans l’abime médiatique par l’équipe de l’Ubu, compagnie de création au Cna.

jackie

Ce petit chef-d’œuvre, qui dure une heure à peine, marie une réflexion  sur le féminisme et sur  l’esthétique symboliste qui domine le travail  de l’Ubu, compagnie de création depuis des années.  Le  portrait de Jackie Kennedy que nous propose l’auteure autrichienne Elfriede Jelinek, offre aux metteurs en scène l’occasion  de  reconstituer  cette belle et mystérieuse figure féminine de la scène politique américaine, tout en prolongeant des expériences avec des caméras,  voir des techniques spéciales , afin d’ évacuer le corps humain « naturel »  de la scène. Dans Les Aveugles de Maeterlinck, ou  les Trois derniers jours de Fernando Pessoa d’Antonio Tabucchi, Denis Marleau avait transformé les acteurs en visages filmés, et nous comprenons mieux alors le processus employé pour  mettre en scène ce portrait de  Jackie Kennedy.

 

Read More Read More

In The Eyes of Stone Dogs. A problematic staging of Daniel Danis translated into English.

In The Eyes of Stone Dogs. A problematic staging of Daniel Danis translated into English.

The adventurous and talented Christopher Bedford has chosen one of the most difficult playwrights currently in vogue in Quebec, to give a group of students from the Ottawa Theatre School, professional experience on stage.  The project is in itself a perilous exercise as we have already seen with Third Wall Theatre which fell soundly on its face when they used a  mixed cast of professionals and students in their version of Tartuffe several years ago, in spite of David Whitely’s excellent translation. Last year, Andy Massingham staged a magnificent version of Shakespeare,s Twelfth Night using students from the Ottawa Theatre School as well as seasoned professionals  but he had the good taste to give all the main roles to professionals. As a result,  that performance  worked beautifully.  Added to the cast was the very brilliant Greg Kramer as Malvolio who created a performance we will never forget.

Daniel Danis is another kettle of fish…so to speak.

Read More Read More

And Slowly Beauty, a most original tribute to the artist and a performance that captures the depths of the artistic sensibility

And Slowly Beauty, a most original tribute to the artist and a performance that captures the depths of the artistic sensibility

beautéIMG_2929

This singular interweaving of  high art, in the form of Chekhov’s theatre,  with  the everyday life of a simple human being, is given a most exquisite  stage  treatment by director Michael Shamata in this coproduction by the Belfry Theatre and the English Theatre company of the National Arts Centre. Michel Nadeau’s  dreamlike experience, And Slowly Beauty,  translated by Maureen Labonté ,  takes us on a journey of flowing  transformation.  Mr. Mann – the Man –  (Denis Fitzgerald), a well-established employee of a downtown  company  leads the empty  life of a bureaucrat. The empty chatter of the office employees, the even emptier  chatter of his wife are compounded by his helplessness in front of his children whose lives don’t bring him any satisfaction.

Read More Read More