Five go to Hamilton

We're so busy with work and studies that it's become increasingly rare for us to go to events together as a family of five. Consequently, Martine and I are always on the lookout for things that we would all enjoy, then planning them well enough in advance so that we can align our schedules. So a few weeks ago, we had a beautiful evening together at the famous Montreal restaurant Le Mousso, and we're all still marveling about the nine courses of haut cuisine and head chef's witty presentation of each. Then last night we all went to see the musical Hamilton in a stunning production at Place-des-Arts.

Hamilton at PdA (screen grab)

There's not much I can say about Hamilton that hasn't already been said so I don't think I'll try. We were all just blown away by it, the energy from the stage at the high-octane moments, the depth of the feelings at the quieter ones. It was an American cast, and they were all outstanding. Little no-longer-at-all-little Philou and I especially loved the performance of Christian Magby in the roles of the Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson. Philou and I used to watch the TV series The Flash together and we remembered him from that - we wouldn't ever have thought of him as a hip hop artist. But wow, he was so charismatic on stage as Lafayette in the first act, delivering a few lines in French to the delight of the Montreal crowd, and then as Jefferson his rap battles with Hamilton in the second act were, literally, mic drop moments.

We had a great evening together. 

Krapp's Last Tape: It's a date!

It's probably my favourite piece by Beckett, and I still remember how moved I was by John Hurt's performance at The Gate Theatre in Dublin in 2001.

 Photograph: Anthony Woods/Gate Theatre digital archive/University of Galway

The story of the play is of a 69-year-old man making his annual recording of his thoughts on his birthday, laughing cynically at the recording of his 39-year-old self, and then losing his cynicism as his thoughts move back and forth between his old self and his current self. One of the many challenges for the solitary actor on stage is to convince in the younger recording while responding to it as the older Krapp. Hurt did that brilliantly. 

But what if a recording were made when an actor was actually thirty-nine, so that he could play the piece when he was sixty-nine? The actor would be responding to his own reality, as well as that of the character he was playing.

That's the idea behind a project by Art Over Borders, where the actor Samuel West made the recording in 2006, and the actor Richard Dormer in 2008. And a limited number of (very) early-bird tickets went on sale last Sunday, Beckett's 120th birthday, for West's performance in 2036.

I bought two. So, if we're not all tempting fate to an outrageous degree, Martine and I will be in Dublin on Saturday, March 22nd, 2036, to see West's performance. I'm looking forward to it!

Eternal Orlando

This production at La Maison Symphonique was an 'adaptation' of Virginia Woolf's novel Orlando into a performance that combined spoken word with pieces of classical music played by the Orchestre Métropolitain. I put 'adaptation' in inverted commas because beyond the basic outline of the story of the time-travelling and gender-shifting Orlando there wasn't that much left of Woolf's novel. Firstly, the text was changed into a series of dialogues and speeches in French that were more inspired by the novel that translated from it. Secondly, the story was altered to incorporate other pieces by Woolf, such as her famous essay on the historical treatment of women artists A Room of One's Own. But most annoyingly for me, the adaptation incorporated elements of Woolf's own life. 

It's increasingly common to approach art through the artist's biography and while that can be illuminating it also feels reductive, especially for women artists. So Woolf is always the lesbian who killed herself (and Syliva Plath is always the wronged wife, who killed herself). These are very one-dimensional ways of approaching their art. The final scene of this production showed the Orlando / Woolf character filling her pockets with stones, preparing to walk into the river Ouse. I'd rather engage with her art without always thinking about this, then think of her as the brilliant and original author who created Orlando, To the Lighthouse, and especially, Mrs. Dalloway. 

But the music was beautiful. 

The highlight of the evening for me was the concluding piece, the Canadian premiere of a cello concerto by Nathalie Joachim (who was in the audience) with Seth Parker Woods the soloist. The concerto was spectacular in the first movements, and then incredibly moving in the final movement. I'll be looking out for a recording. The playing by Woods was brilliant and charismatic, inspiring the orchestra and audience. His clothes made quite the statement, apparently inspired by the Black Dandyism movement. He looked like a rock star compared to the sombre orchestra musicians. I hope to hear and see him again.

Seth Parker Woods
(screengrab from YouTube)

Dehors Novembre

Last Friday Martine and I went to see the show Dehors Novembre about the creation of the celebrated album by Les Colocs (almost twenty-five years ago now) and the too brief life and times of Dédé Fortin (pronounced DayDay and not DeeDee - Martine is a bit frustrated at having to correct my prononciation all the time, and I'm a bit frustrated that she has to).

The show was moving and heart-warming. I had joked beforehand that I'd be the only anglophone in the audience and, sure enough, the couple in the seats beside us were stunned to hear my accented French. (Un anglo icitte? Je ne le crois pas!)

Pretty well everyone in Québec knows the song 'Tassez-vous de d'là' and indeed it was a centre-piece of the show, first just spoken to emphasise the lyrics, and then sung in a boisterous finale. But for me the highlight of the evening was the song 'Le Repondeur' - the lyrics are so poetic, and the actor Hubert Proulx playing the role of Dédé was close to tears as he softly sang them.

J'y ai jamais dit "je t'aime" tout court
J'rajoute toujours quelque chose après
C'comme ça qu'on voit si on est en amour
"Je t'aime beaucoup", ça fait moins vrai

Peut-être qu'y neige, peut-être qu'y pleut
L'hiver est même pas sûr de lui
Yé faite comme moé, yé aussi peureux
Dans l'fond, l'hiver, c'est mon ami

At the end we bought the T-shirts, featuring another line from 'Le Repondeur'.

La vie, c'est court, mais c'est long des p'tits boutes

According to an anecdote told on the night, Vander got that line from a homeless man on St. Laurent boulevard, and whenever Dédé passed the man afterwards he'd always give him twenty bucks for the 'droit d'auteur'.

The original album was written and recorded in a chalet in Saint-Étienne-de-Bolton, the municipality where our own chalet is located. We'll probably try to find the place in the coming months.

Facebook link to Dehors November: au cours de la création de l'album mythique des Colocs

  

 

Ainadamar, Opéra de Montréal

I went to this opera without any real idea of what to expect, and I was blown away. 

It was all the more surprising because the last two operas I saw were disappointing. I had found the storytelling to be poor, the pace lurching between way too slow and far too fast, and even though the singing was often very good and the sets extraordinary, the overall effect was dissatisfying.

But in Ainadamar the pace is really well judged. It opens quickly and you have to pay attention as it switches from scenes of the Spanish civil war featuring the poet Lorca, to a performance of one of his plays in Uruguay in the 1960's. The connection between these two is the character Marianna / Margarita, a role superbly acted and sung by Emily Dorn. As we get to know the characters the pace slows so we can feel their feelings, and the ending is just exquisite, long lines of melody and heartbreaking singing.  

The music is a highlight. Each scene has a signature rhythm, sometimes flamenco, in one stunning part the sound of gunshots and rifles reloading brings us through a massacre in the war.

The review in La Presse was very enthusiastic too.

I had been thinking of not going to the opera for a while, but maybe I should change my mind.

Antigonick

I don't really understand Anne Carson's poetry. Well to be honest, there's a lot of poetry that I love that I don't really understand. If it were easy to understand it would be good prose I suppose but, for me, poetry is a way to recognise and appreciate the beauty and mystery in things that are hard to understand. Or something like that...

So Anne Carson. Her book "Nox", a strange journey through and beyond poem 101 by Catullus, has been a nightly companion of mine for several years, on my bedside table nestled amongst the Heaneys and Plaths. (I wrote about it here a few years ago.) That I don't fully understand it is a part of its strange attraction to me, reading in the half-light until I'm suddenly struck by an instant of clarity, a stark truth perceived as through a glass darkly, or, as she tells us of her lost brother, a feeling of abject loss and loneliness that can move me close to tears.

Two weeks ago my eldest son and I went to a reading of Carson's work Antigonick, part of the Blue Metropolis festival, with the poet herself giving an introductory lecture. Listening to her talk was a similar experience to reading her poetry; clarity followed by confusion, like a distant radio station whose signal fades in and out. Beckett and Brecht were mentioned. Then she abruptly sat down and the play began.

Luckily both my son and I are familiar with the story of Antigone so we could focus on the characters, their thoughts and words, without having to struggle to follow the plot or the confusing relationships (fathers yet brothers, mothers yet lovers). We enjoyed our evening and though some of the actors seemed to struggle with the text, those playing Antigone, Kreon and the one-man chorus, were quite excellent.

And I was doubly happy to share such an evening with my 15-year-old son. Afterwards we discussed whether Antigone could be considered a feminist icon (possibly) or a symbol for civil disobedience (definitely) - a distinct change from our conversation earlier in the evening (should Arsenal continue with the 4-2-3-1 formation or put two players up front instead?)

So I bought the book Antigonick by Carson, and it's on my bedside table now. Just like Nox, the text is accompanied by strange illustrations and notes which I don't really understand...

La Bohème at l'Opera de Montréal

My partner-in-life and I had a wonderful child-free Saturday evening, dinner at a bistro followed by the opera, just like we used to have back in the 90's. In didn't matter that the opera wasn't outstanding; La Bohème is always a likeable piece with some very attractive arias and this was a simple production. The one standout was the performance of Marianne Fiset as Mimi, a wonderfully clear and melodic soprano who sang with delicacy and nuance and more than compensated for the bombastic approach of some of the other performers.

And the boys were sleeping like angels when we arrived home...

La Sagouine at the Segal Centre

The famous one-woman play of Acadian folklore is a tour-de-force for Viola Léger who plays the eponymous old crone. Eighty-years old and with more than 1000 performances behind her, Léger actually is la sagouine - it doesn't feel like a performance. The humour is gentle and the atmosphere wistful; this is not a challenging work but casts light on a culture and people who aren't often seen.

We went on a Thursday night, when the audience was a mixture of the young and old with little in-between; Martine and I were about the only 40-somethings there. Maybe it's different on a Saturday night when kids don't need help with homework and the dishes can wait 'til next morning.

Not just child's play

Three-year-old Philou and I went to a puppet show today at Place des Arts. He loved it, and I did too. For him it was pure enjoyment but for me it also had a wistful and eerie ambience - something profoundly human and delicate was portrayed in the startlingly natural behaviour of the puppets.

OK, perhaps that just means I saw a monkey puppet and, sadly, recognised myself! Or maybe this was both child's play and grown-up art. I'll go with the latter!

The production was by a Swedish company, Dockteaterverkstan, performing "Monkey Business". My favourite was Helga, the shy, frumpy, knife-throwing old lady, eh monkey, I mean puppet. She was the least like me.

After the show I had a chat with the puppeteer, practicing my rusty Swedish, unfortunately cut short when Philou took off into the crowd and I had to catch him before he disappeared into an elevator.