There is a rare visit to the Jean-Claude-Germain room, with the arrival of Get excited, a play whose mixed and uninhibited vernacular rarely has the chance to be heard on our stages. Vibrant portrait of four mismatched friends, but united for life.
For her very first theater text, performer and playwright Stephie Mazunya chose to lift the veil on the daily lives of four Montreal millennials: Naïca, Safia, Chloé and Keza. All of them are enrolled in university (some in accounting, some in medicine or women’s studies), but their conversations go far beyond their university curriculum.
In the minimalist sofa of their shared apartment, these Afro-descendant women discuss love, sexuality, the future to be invented and the need to emancipate themselves. In the same minute, they can rant about Kim Kardashian’s butt, dissect the content of Pornhub, wonder about the after-effects of colonization or throw their four truths in their faces.
Parental inheritance
This vibrant polaroid of a youth whose roots extend as far as Rwanda, Senegal or Haiti unfolds in a language which cheerfully draws on English, Creole, African expressions… The very title of the piece is inspired by a word used in Ivory Coast which means to have fun, to party.
However, it is not always time for festivities for these four. Freeing yourself from parental inheritance is not an easy matter.
Romantic relationships, interracial or not, have their share of challenges… Between the dictates of religion, the hopes of parents to be fulfilled and their own thirst for freedom, navigation can be complicated.
PHOTO VALERIE PROVIDED, PROVIDED BY THE CENTER DU THÉÂTRE D’AUJOURD’HUI
Playwright Stephie Mazunya also plays the role of Keza in the play.
The performers of this iconoclastic quartet, nevertheless united, all perform very well. Malube Uhindu-Gingala is particularly luminous in the role of Chloé, a young queer who dreams of making music with Beyoncé. Stephie Mazunya is touching as the naive Keza, while Naïla Louidort plays with aplomb that of Naïca, a newly graduated accountant stuck in a relationship that only half satisfies her. Carla Mezquita Honhon brilliantly completes the picture in the role of Safia, a young feminist steeped in contradictions.
Very effective staging
Director Sophie Cadieux knew how to infuse everything with the rhythm needed to keep the audience on alert. In this room where we never know where the twists and turns of the conversation will take us, the scenes flow, the lines click, the laughter bursts forth. We are in a vibrant life!
However, those who, like the author of these lines, do not master the language spoken here, will take some time to learn to listen and will have to accept not always understanding everything, down to the smallest word. But the nuanced writing of the author, combined with the very effective direction of Sophie Cadieux, allows us to grasp what is going on in all the layers of the text. Which is not nothing. Especially for a first text.
Visit the show page
Get excited
Text by Stephie Mazunya, directed by Sophie Cadieux. With Stephie Mazunya, Naïla Louidort, Carla Mezquita Honhon and Malube Uhindu-Gingala.
Jean-Claude-Germain Hall at the Center du Théâtre d’Aujourd’huiUntil May 11