The paintings of the painter Francis Bacon are those that burn the retina with their beauty, but also their cruelty. The same goes with the room End Table of Lovean uncompromising show imagined by director Angela Konrad based on the novel by Larry Tremblay.
On a bare stage framed by white walls – a kind of blank screens where all fantasies can be projected – we witness with eyes wide open the heartbreak of a couple of lovers as well as the perverse games that unite them.
In the skin of Francis Bacon, Benoit McGinnis is at times unrecognizable. His mouth twists when he recounts his sexual urges or his violent childhood to a father who found him “defective”. Because the painter needs cruelty to enjoy and create as much as the asthmatic that he is seeks the air to live.
Samuël Côté, whom we hear little, offers a magnetic and disturbing physical presence in the role of lover George Dyer, a thug who entered Francis Bacon’s house to rob him, but who will end up becoming his model. His almost disarticulated naked body recalls the dazzling paintings that feature him.
PHOTO PATRICE TREMBLAY, PROVIDED BY USINE C
End Table of Love remains a powerful spectacle, where suffering and the sublime mingle brilliantly to haunt us for a long time.
Together, the painter and his touchy muse will develop a relationship imbued with passion, but also with pain. Angela Konrad does not hesitate to show them struggling, loving and hating each other in a series of feverish vignettes. The very physical, even choreographed, performance of the two actors commands admiration: the two performers finish the performance covered in sweat, dirt and tears.
The sharp words of Larry Tremblay (who signs the dramaturgical adaptation) find here a powerful echo. They bump into the walls before entering the hearts of the spectators, burning like embers. Because this story can only end badly. And when the painter ends up discovering – too late – the extent of his lover’s love for him, his immense pain passes from the stage to the room.
This requires great acting performances and the right words. This show gives us both.
In the staging, Angela Konrad once again uses the music in a masterful way, using it with small touches, but always at the right moment. When the Requiem of Mozart emerges on scenes of mass graves of the Second World War, the horror of the world combined with the pangs of this tortured relationship takes our breath away.
PHOTO PATRICE TREMBLAY, PROVIDED BY USINE C
The physical performance of the two actors commands admiration.
However, the director uses the recorded voices of the two performers at several points in the show, which deprives the public of part of the pleasure associated with the theater: that of receiving the words as they come out of the mouths of the performers, loaded with the emotion of the moment.
Despite this slight downside, End Table of Love remains a powerful spectacle, where suffering and the sublime mingle brilliantly to haunt us for a long time.
A final note: the spring performances of the End Table of Love, which are held in the intimate room of Usine C, are already sold out (including those presented as part of the FTA). Performances are scheduled for September; tickets are already on sale.
End Table of Love
Based on the novel by Larry Tremblay, directed by Angela Konrad. With Benoit McGinnis and Samuel Côté.
At Factory CUntil June 3, additional in September