Stage echoes | The Glass Menagerie: Intensely Fragile

The Théâtre Denise-Pelletier revisits this great classic of North American theater, in a production by Alexia Bürger, with a young black actor, Fabrice Yvanoff Sénat, in the role of Tom, the alter ego of Tennessee Williams.

“Tennessee Williams says that we often lie to ourselves in order to live, even survive… Eventually, our life becomes this lie. And the job of an author is to expose this lie… without judging it. »

In a few words, Alexia Bürger sums up the theater, the philosophy and the sensitivity of the author ofA tram named Désir. If we are used to seeing her produce creations in the theater, we are happy to find her back on the classics side with this new production.

Alexia Bürger tells us that she (re)discovered the text by Tennessee Williams: “I was fascinated by the open, poetic, symbolic form of the piece. I had kept in mind, when I read it when I was younger, a very naturalistic piece. In the opening monologue, the narrator [Tom] announces that the piece is about memory. We cannot be satisfied with naturalist codes to approach it. »

Produced regularly in Quebec, often adapted for cinema, The Glass Menagerie is Tennessee Williams’ first success. Written in 1943, premiered the following year and largely autobiographical, the play takes place in a modest home in a working-class neighborhood of St. Louis, during the Great Depression.

Perfect tense

Amanda (Marie-Hélène Thibault) lives alone with her two children: Laura (Élisabeth Smith), who suffers from a disability; and Tom, who is trying to escape his family. Her husband works for a telephone company and left her, “too in love with long distances,” Amanda quips. The woman maintains her illusions and her youthful dreams, trying to hold on to her children and the things that connect her to her memories, her idyllic past. She lives in constant denial of the present.

“It talks about past wounds, the feeling of abandonment. I find it an interesting show to present to young people, because it addresses the need to leave one’s family to emancipate oneself and live one’s life. But also the pain and heartbreak that come with this choice,” says Bürger, who is directing his first production at the Théâtre Denise-Pelletier (TDP).

Playing Tom in 2024

In the TDP production, Tom is defended by Fabrice Yvanoff Sénat, a young black actor who studied at the Montreal Conservatory. Claude Poissant suggested it to the director. It’s a “ color blind cast », a theatrical convention. “We don’t explain why Amanda has a black son,” says the actor. But Tom already has the impression of not belonging to his environment, to his family. »

He adds that during his acting studies, he found it difficult to project himself into the great classic characters.

If he had been told he was going to play Williams’ alter ego character, he wouldn’t have believed it: “In my head and with my experiences, Tom could never have been me or a person of diversity. But by working on this production, I see that we can dust off the classics, approach them differently to interest the various communities. It doesn’t mean putting people of color in a show just for the sake of putting people of color,” he says.

According to the actor, artistic directors have a responsibility to capture the spirit of the times. “If, in 2024, a company launches a program without any performers of color, it sends a strange message. We have the right to do it, of course, but it represents a uniquely white vision of the society in which you live. »

From March 12 to April 9, at the Théâtre Denise-Pelletier

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To monitor

The Seagull

Director Catherine Vidal tackles a great theater classic, The Seagull by Anton Chekhov, adapted for the occasion by Guillaume Corbeil. For this brilliant (even hellish) drama of manners with accents of intergenerational conflict, she directs an all-star cast in which Madeleine Sarr, Renaud Lacelle-Bourdon, Igor Ovadis and Mattis Savard-Verhoeven shine. This production is the culmination of two years of work and research carried out at the National Arts Centre, where the play will be presented in April. A word of advice: act quickly, because tickets are flying away. At the Prospero Theater, from March 12 to 30.

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Stéphanie Morin, The Press

These characters in search of an author

The Joe Jack and John company, which includes professional artists with cognitive disabilities among its collaborators, offers a new show that questions the principles of equity, identity and appropriation. A theater troupe is working on its next collective creation, but the members are stuck between their dramatic desires and the principles of appropriation increasingly present in the theater. With humor and tenderness, the protagonists will oppose each other, with the backdrop of an inclusion which takes on primordial importance for these actors too accustomed to the margins… At Espace libre from March 12 to 23.

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Stéphanie Morin, The Press

Love, acid and nuts

Rarely do we have the chance to delve back into the repertoire of established choreographers; this is the golden opportunity offered by the Agora de la danse by presenting Love, acid and nuts, the creation that made Daniel Léveillé known 23 years ago and which has since traveled the world. Moreover, it was at the Agora de la danse itself, in 2001, that the work was first presented. On stage, four bodies with skin as their only armor express solitude, but also tenderness as the ultimate barrier gesture. The play is back in Montreal with a new cast, for three evenings only.

From March 13 to 15, at the Agora de la danse

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Iris Gagnon-Paradis, The Press

Butterfly

Choreographer and researcher Helen Simard and her sidekick, composer and sound designer Roger White, explore the dialogue between movement and sound in their company We All Fall Down. Street and contemporary dance strike iron in their work Butterfly, challenging each other, taming each other, contaminating each other in a jam mixing jazz, hip-hop and drum’n’bass music. Inspired by chaos theory (the butterfly effect), the piece is performed by three performers and musicians, including Mecdy Mystic Rootz, winner of the Performer category at the 2023 Montreal Dance Awards.

From March 12 to 15, at Usine C

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Iris Gagnon-Paradis, The Press

Never, always, sometimes

In this text by Australian playwright Kendall Fever, Anna is a young woman brimming with creativity who decides to become a writer. However, she has to deal with a mental illness that has plagued her for a long time. By stopping taking medication that is knocking her out, she forces those around her to question the decisions made with regard to Anna. A text directed by Brigitte Poupart, who here directs Lauren Hartley, Annick Bergeron, Simon Landry-Désy and Marie-Laurence Moreau. From March 13 to April 13 at the Rideau vert.

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Stéphanie Morin, The Press