After its Broadway premiere in 1968, the musical Hate was produced around the world, including in Paris in 1969 and Montreal in 1970, then brought to the big screen with great freedom by Milos Forman in 1979. Revolutionary, both in terms of content and form, the poetic cabaret of Gerome Ragni and James Rado, set to music by Galt MacDermot, brilliantly crystallizes a blessed era: that of the counter-culture of the 1960s, from the demands of the hippie movement to the ideals of the legendary peace and love.
Pointing to the foundations of a sexist, racist, homophobic, bigoted, hypercapitalist and ultramilitarist society, the work created more than half a century ago unquestionably sheds light on our present trouble. Unfortunately, the show produced by Just for Laughs and directed by Serge Denoncourt does not embrace the political dimension of the play, relying more on prettiness than on revolt, on brilliance than on anchoring, on greasy humor than on social criticism.
Given the disjointed nature of the libretto, a story that holds on to very little, it is essential that the community represented on stage be characterized by an exceptional symbiosis, an irresistible presence, an overwhelming sensuality and an overwhelming anger. However, it is not the case.
Accompanied by seven musicians, carried by the exciting choreographies of Wynn Holmes, the 25 performers are undeniably talented, but the staging very rarely manages to make the group a living force. Rather than enriching the show, completing the committed songs and poignant tunes, the spoken scenes cause slowing down, heaviness, even discomfort, greatly affecting the rhythm of the evening.
Among the six main roles, the prize goes to Kevin Houle. Funny, touching and irreverent, his interpretation of Berger, a free spirit who fascinates as much as he worries, is remarkably complex.
In the second part, the show takes us into the prodigious and terrible hallucinations of Claude, a character whose inner conflict Philippe Touzel translates very well. While savoring this cathartic reinterpretation of American history, a segment that evokes the golden age of collective creation – paintings where the scenographer Guillaume Lord and the lighting designer Julie Basse have a great time -, you are surprised to imagine the turn the evening could have taken if it had been entirely propelled by such theatricality, by so much pure invention, strong emotions and formal freedoms.
On the evening of the media premiere, a power outage came to create a parenthesis in the last minutes of the show – a magical moment when the troupe and the public sang with one voice, a capella and under the only lights of the telephones, Let the sun in. As they say, you had to be there.