The Changing Room: A highly charged performance of sexual identities and human fragility

Photo: Courtesy of : Productions Nous sommes ici.

 

A highly charged meeting of Drag Queen burlesque cabaret, stand-up comedy, telereality show, docudrama, verbatim theatre, improv, audience participatory theatre, and an extremely perceptive reflection on sexual identity, makes The Changing Room a most surprising and exciting take on popular theatre that digs much deeper than one would have expected.

Written and directed by a very talented Alexandre Fecteau, this encounter with the world of Drag Queen performance delves into the very nature of a theatre that performs sexual identity, showing the outer brilliant, flashy, kitschy show biz side of it on a red velvet draped stage within the NAC Studio. At the same time, it simultaneously takes us back stage, where a camera in the dressing room, overhears the real conversations among the four “Queens” who talk about their stage characters, how they came to the business and how they manage it all, including the insults and exclusion the Drag Queens suffer in their off stage life.. However, in the course of the show, more levels of “performance ” are unveiled as the professional actors (men and women), performing in a Drag show, tell us how they came to be in the show and how they constructed their various sexually defined stage identities by taking their inspiration from professional Drag Queens operating in Montreal and Quebec. These serious conversations are interrupted by moments of burlesque performance, their own stage acts, foregrounding Chantal Bonneville’s choreographed parodies, with flashy costumes, wild makeup, wigs and gorgeous shoes to enhance these wild lip synch numbers taken from Lady Gaga, the Flash Dance film, Diane Tell and a lot more popular performers that have the audience leaping out of their seats.

A few members of the audience are invited back stage where they too, as amatures, are also drawn into the spirit of the show. The reactions are very different. Act II investigates even further the depth of this reality show where “reality” is unmasked as a notion that has absolutely no more meaning since every single performer, with the show or a guest on stage, is an essentially theatrical construction, constantly performing multiple layers of identity that have no solid basis anywhere. Even the individual who is not pretending to be a Drag Queen because that is her daily job, is still presenting “her” own level of performance that creates an even more uncanny strangeness precisely because her job is to be what the actors are trying to imitate. Is there a difference? That is the question.

This show has gleaned something from Jean Genet’s vision of identity, whose characters are constantly performing identities that are reflected ad infinitum through ceremonies of power relations played out by actors of interchangeable sexual identity, forced to wear and change masks. The difference is that the strong, almost destructive relations of power, inherent in Les Nègres, Le Balcon or Les Bonnes, are much more gentle in Fecteau’s show. This group at the NAC constitutes one big happy theatrical family and the kindness they generate makes one feel very good.

However some moments of pathos, related to real psychological problems and ultimately life threatening illness, that intervene in Act II, do bring us closest to a recognizable reality. Even though such emotional depth seemed almost out of place in this show where everything is pure theatre, it did reveal that suffering is what unites the whole human race, no matter how individuals define themselves. That was probably a final touch of brilliance.

The Changing Room is a strange and wonderful show that is entertaining and highly thought provoking. Don’t be shy, relax and do see it, even if the Master (Mistress) of Ceremonies, “Délice” keeps taking nasty jabs at Ontario, it was just another part of the show.

The Changing Room

Written and Directed by Alexandre Fecteau

A Production: Nous sommes ici.

Set : Marie-Renée Bourget-Harvey

Costumes : Virginie Leclerc

Lighting : Jérôme Huot

Sound : François Leclerc

Caméra: Marilyn Laflamme

Maquillages: Geneviève Dionne

Chorégraphies : Chantal Bonneville

Cast :

Frédérique Bradet, Anne Marie Côté, Simon Dépôt et Martin Perreault

Featuring Jean-François Simard.