The play opens with the choir of a synagogue on a balcony of a very costly set, while the rest of the cast on the stage is dancing and singing something like jazz. This liturgical music mash is one of the best moments in the show, symbolizing the hero’s conflict and origins in the most interesting of musical moments. The contrast of the men wearing the traditional prayer shawls with the wild and sexy jazz costumes of the dancers below was a truly inspired start.Unfortunately the rest of the play did not live up to this promising moment. Some of the performers did deliver. Lisa Rubin has a wonderful voice and one hopes to see her in future production where she actually gets to act as well as sing. Fishel Golding was a convincing cantor and Judy Strauber was good as his wife and mother of the Jazz Singer. Nadia Verucci never disappoints and the stage belonged to her when she strutted on it. Stan Unger did do a creditable producer, but he was utterly upstaged by Chris Barillaro who was really terrific in the few moments he had as the tipsy assistant to Harry.

A play about a jazz singer has to have a terrific lead actor to carry it off. Elan Kunin was not such a one. The music was not particularly memorable and most of us know actual songs from the era which are much hotter. Kunin’s delivery was not outstanding and his acting weak. There was no one moment in the show when one could genuinely feel for him. The scenes between Jacob and his father did not have the intimacy which would have made Jacob’s abandonment meaningful or poignant. In fact, Lisa Rubin’s performance as Miriam when she goes to plead with Jacobin in his dressing room was the most moving in the story.

The sets were fantastic and John Denning does not disappoint. His work is impeccable and the rotating stage makes so much possible. James Lavoie designed some great period costumes. I do not know why there was a bag lady with a thoroughly contemporary cart in the first scene, but that was surely not his doing. The choreography was as good as the dancers, and Jim White got some great moments out of a basically amateur cast. The music though not memorable was serviceable, and the band was great.

The problem is that the writing was schmaltzy instead of moving and the characters did not grow or change. There is no real indication that Jacob is suffering or that his ultimate choice really costs him. It was difficult to believe his romance with Mary, even though I know that Nadia Verrucci gave her best. It might be better to go and see the movie again. The producers of the film may not have had the resources of the Segal Centre, but there was one unforgettably great performance.

The Jazz Singer plays at the Segal Theatre until June 27, 2010.

The best play yet, Jesus Jello: The Miraculous Confection, is written by a witty and talented playwright and directed with great imagination and humour. Joanne Sarazen has crafted a very funny script and when Tristan Lalla does a poignant disquisition on the use of a narrator, while actually doing the job as God, she demonstrates a wicked and delightful sense of theatre.

Lalla is disquietingly hilarious as God and is perfectly cast. He has perfect sense of timing and irony to go with his parts as the almighty and a preacher.

George Bekiaris is perfect as the gay partner who hates all things gay and has issues with his mother. Joseph Bembridge as his partner is delightful as a joyous and witty partner for Bekiaris’ curmudgeon. His dialogue is beautiful written and Bembridge’s delivery is just amazing.

Emily Quail added just the right tone of sarcasm to make the religious scenes palatable. Her performance was acerbic and wise, and not at all grating. Thomas Preece was terrific as the milquetoast son. He was utterly believable and wholly sympathetic as the wimp who wanted to escape the ordinariness of his family.

Patrick Charron is always a pleasure on the stage, and he did give a wonderful over the top father/husband performance that was funny without being too extreme. His restraint as the husband of overbearing Catherine Lemieux was perfectly calibrated. Catherine was magnificent as the wild eyed tormented mother who takes over the jello and rides the religious wave of her town. She delivers a credible performance of a woman trapped in a church environment which has smothered her.

Not enough has been written about Joanna Noyes, she simply glows with talent. She adorns the stage with intelligent and gifted performances, and here, in this little fringe play she just shines. A thorough professional, she gives us the most moving moments as the forgotten widow of a rotten husband who makes excuses for every one who has not attended his funeral. One senses her quiet support of the cast and her flawless delivery is worth the price of admission.

Afternoon Tea with Jane Austen

Afternoon Tea with Jane Austen is not a play. It is a long and often tedious lecture on the life achievements and sometimes endless opinions of this fabulous author. There have been one woman shows that work; the one about Emily Dickenson comes to mind, but they were written by playwrights and directed to within an inch of perfection. This was more of a lecture on obscure and often uninspiring points about Austen’s well-researched and much written about life. I should have preferred a reading of her biography, in the comfort of my own home.

Please Excuse the Mess

Please Excuse the Mess by Joint predicament theatre, lived down to its name. These were four absolutely adorably Brit chicks who have not yet hatched a real performance piece. The writing and directing were weak and the performances self conscious, and not in a good way. They have come an awful long way to say very little.

Spots of Time

Spots of Time by DB Productions was a very early draft of a very uninteresting subject. An academic played reasonably well by Len Richman, is literally haunted by his younger self, played anemically by Jeremy Lacombe. Pat is having a nervous breakdown exacerbated by visits from a brother played by Stephpane Malka. In the mix is the girl who got away played by Christina Sciortino.

It is true that in theatre one is literally receiving one’s artistic education in public. Unfortunately the writing direction and performance of this play are not quite ready for performance in a theatre.

Feels Like the First Time

Feels Like the First Time by The Dirty Little Spoons ROCKS!!! They come out fighting and everything that follows their no-holds-barred opening fight scene is fast paced, well written, daringly performed and hilariously directed. Léa Rondot, Rosaruby Kagan, Léanna Glance and Katherine O’Brian are priceless, and their pacing is undaunted for the entire show. Their personae are wonderfully realized for sketch comedy, particularly the poor putz whose girlfriends abuse, neglect and bad mouth him in succession. The religious fanatic who lectures on her belief system and then delivers a punch line as a throwaway was particularly magical. If you can get in, there is nothing like live comedy by thorough professionals. I laughed out loud and barely caught my breath. Yes, this is fringe gold.

There is a feeling of improv and spontaneity in this work that is fun for the first half hour. It is a great idea: a send up of the self-importance and posturing of the writer-publisher relationships that can and do exist in Montreal’s flourishing literary community.

The idea of a new poet being discovered at the Parc Portuguese after fixing a bike and feeding a pigeon is delightful. Alain Mercieca is fine as the over the top publisher, and Kirsten Rasmussen is really engaging as a young emerging poet, until we get to her rambling story about her Chassidic background which includes the mispronunciation of the Hebrew names.

Massimo Cannastraro is a funny Mafioso and quite delightful as the jealous author watching the next generation capturing the spotlight. Although, the third time he uses the same gestures and intonation you realize this is a very cute but boring imitation of a soprano character.

Catherine Moreau did fine job as the receptionist of the publishing house and Ainslie Roantree was convincing as the videographer of the motley crew. Sandi Armstrong created a kind of forties songstress replete with whiskey voice and moxie.
The only issue with this work is that it is not a play but a series of vignettes which are overwritten, under dramaturged and sloppy in their performance. Even cartoon-like characters deserve to make sense and at the length of this work so does the plot.

This was Keir Cutler’s eighth rant. I have witnessed two of the previous performances and he is consistently provocative and interesting. This rant is a self indulgent look at problems with anger management. The writing is wonderful and the performance including Keir’s glaucoma like bulging eyeballs is over the top, which is more like the medium being the message.

Cutler explains that ranting has been a curse and that his father probably died of it. His hilarious depiction of papa Cutler rejecting a Big Mac because of the mayonnaise on it, is a classic Fringe event. In fact, Cutler lists a plethora of things which, to his mind, deserve a rant because “they make no sense”: getting fired as ESL teacher because he used his class to rant instead of teach, and sleep apnea treatment being denied him because breathing being stopped six times is acceptable, are just a few.

He takes us through the agony of “the talking cure” with a Freudian and his breakup with a very busy woman. He explains how e-mail has made virtual ranting a dangerous tool that could come back to bite one. He finally realizes that the six week rant that resulted from his getting a letter from a Fringe Audience member about Teaching As You Like It, resulted in his truly fine collaboration with his director T J Dawe and brought them both to doing this show.

Keir Cutler is an articulate, intelligent writer whose performances are professional, really well timed, rehearsed and hilarious. One is gently led through a story that is not only laugh provoking; it is thought provoking, and that is what makes Keir’s work so unique and irresistible.

Hold on to your hat. There is not a single gizmon gimmick or technological buzz that is left out of this trilogy of plays based on Shakespeare’s Roman plays. There is a moment when Antony seems to be playing with an iPad. There are multiple screens onstage where actual news is being played to remind us how apropos and timely these plays are.

The proscenium is half covered with a giant screen which showed the English and French translations of the Dutch the actors were using. Sometimes this giant screen showed intimate moments of the actors who were constantly monitored by cameras, and sometimes in a freeze frame it was the perfect medium for death, in the grainy picture style of Allo Montréal.

This post post-modern interpretation of Coreolanus, Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra touches on all the political subjects of a modern thriller. Power, politics the individual and the state, and the questioning of morality and ethics against a background of endless war, are issues which plague us today.

The seating was so optional that the audience was encouraged to change places and even sit on the stage. The set was a waiting room in hell crossed with a conference room in inferno, decorated in a sleep inducing grey and adorned with very up to moment glass writing boards, multiple televisions and, when needed, couches in uncomfortable fabric and shapes. The modern dress was not new, but Cleopatra’s slip was strangely old fashioned. When war was announced in the final scene, a bank of lights was turned uncomfortably on the audience, bruising our eyes and accusing us of complicity in the themes of the plays.

There were fantastic moments, like the first announcement of battle when the drums and strobe lights and chaos on stage really worked, although the sixth or seventh time it was really de trop. The acting was astonishing. Not even a hand held camera in their faces and really mediocre translations of the text—you can’t really paraphrase Shakespeare, and I was sorely missing the iambic pentameter of the lines—could take away the remarkable and extraordinary work of these actors.

The performance of Mark Antony in Julius Caesar was breath taking. Even a jaded audience member was moved to applaud after the flawless and remarkable delivery. When Enobarabara leaves the theatre and goes out to St. Lawrence Boulevard, he is followed by his videographer and we see the passersby astonished at this street theatre performance of Shakespeare in Dutch. He never lost his focus, and that is truly amazing. Cleopatra was also magnificent; her passion and over the top sensuality were enchanting, in spite of the fact that she was not particularly the stereotypical beauty queen of the Nile.
Her Charmion was not only delightful, but when a champagne bottle popped out of control and doused her costume, she made it part of Charmion’s shtick in a truly professional and humourous way.

I like my theatre simple and mostly unadorned, with equal parts humour and emotion, but here I was either lulled to a deep REM sleep or blasted out of my seat for over five hours. has created an event. Certainly Coreolanus and Julius Caesar do not stand well by themselves, but by the time we got half way through Antony and Cleopatra, a number of audience members had left.

It was an experience which was more television reality show than theatre, and audience members were encouraged to twitter their reactions to the work as it progressed, and their sometimes illiterate comments got posted on the ubiquitous grey screen. Shakespeare is enduring and his themes are eternal to all audiences. This production by Amsterdam Toneelgroep was a truly amazing experience and Montreal is privileged to have the opportunity to experience it.

Roman Tragedies continues today and Sunday at 4 pm. Dutch with English and French surtitles. National Monument. Regular price: $68; 25 and under, 65 years and over: $ 50.

Ajami is not a linear film, and you are not in Hollywood by a million miles. A Bedouin Mafioso walks into an Arabic café in a very poor neighbourhood in Jaffa and when the owner refuses to pay “protection” money, begins shooting the place up with an automatic. The owner responds by taking out his own gun and shooting the Bedouin.

The resulting vendetta devolves upon a nephew of the café owner, one of the main characters who must pay the Bedouin’s family an outrageous amount of reparation money. This amount is decided by a neutral “judge” in a Bedouin tent. This is one of the many plots and sub-plots in this amazing work.

The acting was so natural it did not seem to be performed, but had an almost mesmerizing documentary quality. The stories were divided into chapters, but even the chapters were not really linear. They finally all came together in a terrifying climax with the dimensions of Greek tragedy. The film left one drained and desperate to remember the fascinating details of quotidian life in an Arabic community rarely seen before in its detail and complexity.

Much of the film takes place in Ajami, a poor Arabic neighbourhood of the ancient port city of Jaffa; which leads a duplicitous life as historical tourist attraction and neighbour of bustling Tel Aviv. It is home to Israeli Arabs who are often caught in the middle of the bigger on-going Middle East crisis. It is the ancient biblical port where the cedar trees for the temple entered the holy land, and a main tourist and disco haunt.

After the film was shown for the Cinémagique Ciné Club organized and run by Canadian film director Peter Pearson, Eran Bester (organizer of the Israeli film festival) came to the front of the house and imparted some fascinating facts about this movie.

The co-directors are both Israeli, but one is Jewish, (Scandar Copti) and the other Palestinian (Taron Shani). There are scenes with ex-policemen in the roles of policemen to which only the Jewish Israeli could have had access. The scene with the judge speaking to the Bedouins had actual Bedouins in it who were not at all aware that they were being filmed for a fictional work. It would have been impossible for a Jewish Israeli to film this.

None of the performers were actors! They had been chosen to play their roles after the script had been collaborated on, and it took three arduous months to select them. Once the actors were chosen, they had to go into a rigorous nine month training period to learn how to act naturally in front of a camera. Many of the scenes were improvised dialogue and it was so spontaneous that no one could tell these were not the most extraordinary screen performers.

Most astonishing is the seamless narrative which circles around in provocative ways, and concludes in the inevitable cathartic conclusion.

Ajami, Academy Award Nominee Best Foreign Film, is showing at the AMC Forum 22. 2313 St. Catherine St. West Suite 101, 1:00-4:00-7:00-10:00.

In order to appreciate the full impact of Andersen’s Inkwell, the current offering by Geordie Productions, I took my seven-year-old friend Massimo along. He is quite literate and had never before gone to the theatre. The D.B. Clarke is just the right size theatre for a first outing, and I thought this play was a perfect introduction.

I was enchanted from the first snowflake and the staging, lighting and costumes were exquisite. The delightful Victorian scenes and the absolute theatricality of the moments on stage worked a magic web of wonder. I was charmed by the device of the student, the book and the goblin and everything worked.

Tristan Lalla was a perfect emperor and his lack of clothing was truly hilarious. Amanda Kellock and Daniel Brochu were simply divine as the weaver swindlers, and their comment on contemporary fashion obsessions was a social zinger of a critique. How lovely to see Hans Christian Andersen still hitting the mark. Zach Fraser was haunting as Andersen, and charming as the student who would rather read than eat.

Susan Glover got many a laugh as the grocer’s wife. Her panic and distress as the elder minister were haunting. Kellog’s little match girl was minimalist and genuinely touching.

Micheline Chevrier is a seasoned and inspired director and there were many breath-taking moments in this production which attest to her finesse and talent. Ana Cappelluto designed with pure magic and the back lit moments were worth the price of admission.

When the delightfully elongated Hans Christian Andersen cut out his final snow flake and the house lights came up, I turned to Massimo. He was confused. The weaving of so many stories is just too much for a seven-year-old, albeit a very literate one. He got the Emperor’s new clothes and he sort of understood some of what the student was doing, but the tongue persona and the talking cash register were a little beyond his grasp. He enjoyed the staging, and was fascinated by the fact that those were real honest to goodness live people up there on a real stage.

Story weaving works when it is kept really simple; otherwise we are led “Into the Woods” and the script is really aiming at sophistication some of the children who were sitting near us just didn’t have. I loved the production and recommend it for children over eight, and all adults who love theatre.

Andersen’s Inkwell by Gina Wilkinson is at the D.B. Clarke Theatre until May 9. Reservations: 514 845 9810. For more details, check out the Geordie Productions site.

There is a huge amount of charm in Harvey. The story, about the mild and exceedingly well mannered Elwood P. Dowd, and the six foot three and something inch rabbit he takes on as his best friend, is more charming than funny. It has an old fashioned quality to it, a play of manners set in the United States at a time when class and status still had a lot of clout.

R.H. Thomson does a marvelous turn as the lead and is particularly convincing in the famous lines: “My mother said that in this world you have to either be smart or pleasant.” Dowd is no less smart than any other character in the play, but he chooses to let everyone think what they please as he pursues his delights in the company of Harvey, his best friend. Truly a magnificent actor, Thomson could be reading the phone book and still have us mesmerized.

When Dowd’s sister Vita decides to have him put away so that she can take over the family fortune and find a suitable match for her daughter, the plot creaks into action. Nora McLellan does have some great moments in a rather frantic take on the sister, and her timing was just right as the flustered and much put upon social climber, who winds up in “cold water.”

It is a joy to see Montreal actors in minor parts which they inhabit with such élan and talent. Jane Gilchrist was simply delightful as Ethel Chauvenet and her furry costume should have gotten an equity credit of its own. Moira Wylie was endearing as Mrs. Chumley, and trod the incredibly luxurious (and expensive) set with fabulous style and assurance. Gemma James Smith played what would ordinarily be the dumb blond nurse so intelligently that she got laughs with the raising of an eyebrow and the tiniest inflection of her voice. Walter Massey is terrific as the judge/lawyer, giving his performance a balance of gravitas and mirth. Mike Paterson had a walk on, and handled it with memorable delivery and humanity. In a tiny role, he became the proverbially large actor who filled it out. His psychiatric orderly was competent, and filled the bill. David Francis, looking spookily like Dr Freud, played the part of Dr. Chumley with outrageous aplomb and took to the slapstick and shtick like the seasoned professional he is.

There are no giant laughs in this show, although there are enough deep chuckles to be encouraging. The true meaning of the play lies somewhere in the Celtic definition of a Pooka or shape shifting spirit; it is as evasive as the original legend. One has to suspend one’s disbelief in any number of ways to truly enjoy this play and, for some of us, that is an awful lot of work. Many will find it enchanting to forgo the cynicism that imbues so much theatre these days and head for the Segal for a nostalgic work which opened during the Second World War.

It is not irrelevant to quote the director Diana Leblanc: “I think relevance is an overused word. I don’t see why something has to be relevant to have a direct meaning for today’s world.”

Harvey runs until May 8th at the Segal Centre. 5170 Cote Ste Catherine Road. Box Office: 514 739 7944.

Photo Credit: Randy Cole

One of the really fabulous things about theatre in this city is that no one seems to realize it is not supposed to be so diverse. Here we have a Dutch director, Jacqueline Van de Geer, mounting an Austrian play with local actors, Marie-Noelle Dufour, Caroline Fournier, and Michaela Di Cesare, in English.

Holy Mothers is a “pulp comedy,” engorged with provocative images, grotesque language and a bizarre plot. It is the theatrical equivalent of German Techno music played too loud in a small space, but it is riveting. Its author, Werner Schwab, is a legend in Europe. He was a sculptor, playwright and novelist reputed to have written most of his work drunk out of his mind to the accompaniment of the techno band Einsturzende Neubauten. He died very young of alcohol poisoning while listening to his friends play his beloved techno music.

The work is decidedly anti-bourgeois and much of the language scatological. In fact, it brings “toilet humour” to amazing new heights. Yet in spite of the lack of experience in the actors, Van de Geer has managed to keep the pace frenetic and the imagery over the top in a macabre non-realistic and truly engaging production.

This play confirms my suspicion that German language playwrights are trying to top their own morbid art form, Kindertottenlieder (Children Death Songs), so popular in the nineteenth century, with an even more horrific art form. I call it “rats nest wretched-ism” or the art of making life appear more miserable than it actually is. Schwab was the son of a cleaning lady who had been left by his Nazi father before he was born, and in a small Austrian town; his childhood could not have been a piece of Kuchen. He lived the first twelve years of his life in a basement apartment and only experienced humanity from the ground to the knees.

The three women in the play act out their fantasies and compete to tell their stories in a spiralling insanity which ricochets about the tiny stage. At one point Grete is in the throes of a passionate encounter while Mariedl reaches religious ecstasy in the bathroom and Erma has an epiphany over a liver sausage. Erma repeats at the conclusion that “they say that in this country everyone has a body in the basement.” This is about Austria where the bodies remain buried but not entirely forgotten.

The actors had the usual preview jitters but they managed to deliver inspired performances. If you can get down to Theatre Ste Catherine in the next week, treat yourself to a unique and provocative evening.

The Holy Mothers at the Theatre Sainte Catherine, 264 Ste Catherine Street. Box office: 514 284 3939. Through April 11. Matinees Sat and Sun 2 pm.

The 13th annual Wildside Festival, at the Centaur Theatre through Sunday, January 17th, definitely lives up to its name. The festival brings together six cutting-edge plays – and it’s a wild and exhilarating ride all the way.

Johanna Nutter is always worth seeing and her performance in My Pregnant Brother, the story about her sister who first became a man and then gave birth to a girl, is astonishing. In a simple narrative, this performer gives the audience a beautiful story related with magic nuances and brilliant simplicity. It is theatre at its most elemental and it makes facing the cold very worth while.

Dance Animal is the explosive and delightful creation choreographed by Robin Henderson and featuring 10 talented and terrifically funny performers. The choreography and the monologues interacted perfectly to send up the musical style and put reality performance television to shame. It was so fresh and original and one can only hope that there will be more shows in this genre. All the performances were wonderful, but I remember best the modern dancer who did not speak but danced her story and had another performer “translate” her modern dance moves.

Someone Between, written and performed by Chantria Tram, is a beautifully staged narrative about the life of a first generation Cambodian woman in Canada. It is a truly interesting work in progress. As someone who was born in a refugee camp, I was particularly delighted by the moments when the young Chantria is trying to interpret her parents’ reality to a “Canadian” girlfriend. The play worked best when it give the actor a chance to act, and her performance as the mother was terrific. There was a little too much information, and too little playing, but it remains a fascinating window into the dislocation and trauma of trying to bridge two very disparate cultures.

Ties is a haunting and very interesting performance piece by the Odelah Collective. Performed by Christine Aubin Khalifah and Greg Gale, and directed by Arianna Bardesono, it addresses grief, love and mourning for a parent. The first third of the piece is physical theatre with repetition, mime and little dialogue. The opening which is performed on the floor could not actually be seen because of the sightlines, and then suddenly it comes to life. It feels like a first act of a work in progress, interesting, but not yet realized. It is certainly worth seeing for its originality and the very fine performances.

Penumbra by Katherine Dempsey is shocking. No, not the sexuality of the piece or the brilliant staging or fabulous performances, but the truth just sets one back on one’s heels. Catherine Berubé is a brilliant performer. Her rendition of the 17-year-old suburban girl who posts an ad on the internet and reaps a world of painful and inadequate sexual and emotional interactions is mesmerizing. Paul Van Dyke is the wunderkind of the English theatre scene and his direction was subtle and brilliant. Michelle Boback performed well the wife who becomes an enabler and Howard Rosenstein gave a fabulous performance of the difficult prissy professor. Christopher Moore was entirely believable as the abandoned boyfriend. Penumbra is the end of romance and its hard edged cynicism is searing.

Dust, by Jason Maghanoy, is well written in a minimalist style that is deceptively simple. Jonathan (Brandon Coffey) and Jenny (Jesssica Moss) perform brilliantly the barely literate and simple minded duo who fall into the hell of the prison routines in Iraq. Their courtship and work is recorded by Jenny on digital camera. As Jonathan tries to pull away from the moral morass of what they are doing and what it causes them to become, his paramour is becoming addicted to sadism. The play was short and very well done, and it addressed the unthinkable which is as useful as it is unpleasant, and this work gives new meaning to Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty.

The festival is on until Sunday January 17 at the Centaur Theatre. Box office: 514 288 3161.

Montreal’s been a sad place to be a playwright. The two major theatres were, and some say still are, much too interested in doing second-hand U.S. and U.K. productions, and neglecting both Canadian work and local playwrights. However, there has been a sea change with Centaur’s production of Bated Breath, and In Piazza San Domenico, while the Segal is up for a play by Kent Stetson, winner of the Governor General’s award and Order of Canada. Not a huge risk, but a modest beginning.

Most discouraging has been the ongoing policy of the Playwrights Workshop to focus on public readings of playwrights not from here, and so well established they have a plethora of other venues to be developed and read in across the country. It does enhance the grantability of Playwrights to expose these playwrights because the plays are usually already contracted to open – usually elsewhere. Production in Montreal is much more unlikely. This is why public readings are enormously important to this community. This is not to say that Playwrights Workshop is not serving the community with dramaturgy and writers units and in house readings, which are truly necessary to the development of any script, and they do a splendid job.

One of the artistic directors of a major venue here has told many playwrights that they do not read plays. Being a mischief maker by nature, I organized a cast and went to the A.D.’s office where we merrily read the entire play right then and there. However, what I like to call Guerrilla Play Reading is not for everyone.

Fortunately, there are now two play reading series and they are happening this very weekend. Tableau d’hôte Theatre is in the midst of their new annual event while Infinithéâtre has a series running through tomorrow at the Bain St. Michel.

If you generally enjoy the theatre and have never been to a reading, this is a fantastic opportunity and one of the best shows in town. The actors are professional, the readings will be entertaining and will astonish, and most of all you will be doing the playwright a service by attending.

One of those benefitting from this sea change is Alexandria Haber, winner of this year’s Pam Dunn award for Life Here After, which will be read this evening at the Bain St. Michel as part of Infinithéâtre’s Pipeline series.

At lunch recently she revealed that she started as an actor and then got married and pregnant. This amazing mother of four started writing during her second pregnancy and says that she was inspired to pursue it further while participating in a playwrights’ unit at the Playwrights Workshop, and it was in a recent unit that she wrote the play that will be read tonight.

She has resumed her acting career lately, but says she chose to write because it gave her less of a sense of rejection and offered more control over what the project will be. She is inspired by her contemporaries in this community, and she is fond of playwrights such Caryl Churchill, Sam Sheppard, and Harold Pinter, and Canadians Judith Thompson and Coleen Wagner, whose Down from Heaven was recently produced here.

Like her colleagues in Montreal, Haber attends French theatre. This gives her plays a certain extra dimension. What drives her is the idea that theatre is important. She is particularly pleased when she can portray characters who affect the audience and reflect their lives. “Theatre allows us to explore the stories behind events,” she says.

Haber says that she might have been produced more often in a different city but it is the great community here that makes Montreal special. The public reading at Infinithéâtre will be her first. A mature writer will welcome comments and pick and choose the ones which will enhance the process.

“My main theme is women and their place in the world their relationships and struggles and how they fit in a changing world,” she says. “In a world where woman can technically have it all, but at what price, how do they cope?”

Tableau d’hôte Theatre presents the 1st annual New Canadian Works Series, showcasing original works from emerging and published writers. Tonight, at 7 pm, Kill Zone, a love story by Wanda Graham; tomorrow, at 8 pm, Kayak by Jordan Hall. Venue: ASM Performing Arts, 1216 Stanley, suite 300. Tickets: info@tableaudhotetheatre.ca. Or check out their site.

Tonight at Infinithéâtre’s series of free public readings, at the Bain St-Michel (5300, rue St-Dominique), Alexandria Haber’s Life Here After, winner of the second annual Pam Dunn Write-On-Q playwriting contest. Tomorrow, Nick Carpenter’s The Return of Corporal Mazenet is featured.

Haunted Hillbilly is hilarious and delightful, a romp on the dark side of honky-tonks and revival tent culture with a finger-snapping, toe-tapping integrity that is eerily contagious. When Hyram Woodside, played with great gusto and subtlety by Patrick Costello, sets out to become the brightest star in Country music, he trades in the humble cowboy suit made by his spouse (the superb Gemma James-Smith), and makes a Faustian deal with a kinky couturier in a wheelchair (Greg Kramer).

There is no simple way to describe Kramer’s enthralling performance. He takes the play to a completely different level; and he makes his evil ways hilariously funny. Kramer is a maestro who can make your skin crawl while you laugh out loud. His magnificent portrayal of Nudie alone is worth the trip to the Segal.

The story, a musical adaptation of Derek McCormack’s novel, has all the epic twists and reversals of an epic tale. The directing was very clean and it was delightful to see the actors as they sat in front of a kind of giant patchwork quilt, the set for the opening scenes. Daniel Brochu gives an insanely manic performance as Erskine Mole, the erstwhile king of country. His performance skirts the frontiers of caricature, and stops short at the precipice. Jackie Torrens inhabits the persona of Lil’ Molly, the M.C. and life of the radio show where much of the drama is initiated. Alexis Taylor as Bobbi is the strangely devoted ingénue, and is hilarious as the naïve one-legged love interest of the hero.

Kyle Gatehouse was riveting as Dr. Wertham, the silent companion of the evil Nudie. He never spoke but communicated volumes with his careful and deliciously bizarre gestures. Trent Pardy played Pastor Ray, the disreputable snake oil salesman and honky tonk owner, with manic aplomb.

There was a three-piece band on stage and this presentational bit of staging worked brilliantly in the context of a musical about country and western shows. It also allowed the musicians to interact with the personae in a really clever manner.

It was delightful to see so many truly talented actors and musicians take the stage and deliver a fully realized piece of the theatre. While there was no one song that stayed in one’s mind, the music was professional and well played and delivered even if it did not leave me humming the hook lines as I left. This is a very minor point as so much of the evening was just fantastic.

The fact that the SideMart Theatrical Grocery company is also offering Montreal a Pay What You Can on Sunday, December 13th is fabulous. It is a great audience builder and more theatres in Montreal would do well to reprise this very Toronto tradition. Many theatres there have made just as much at the gate and the good will in the community has become a priceless asset. There is a potential audience of almost a million in this city and, now that English theatre is actually growing for the first time, it also needs to learn how to grow the audience it merits.

The Haunted Hillbilly plays at the Studio at the Segal Centre for Performing Arts, 5170 cote Ste. Catherine, thru December 20th. Tickets : 514 739 7944. For more information, contact: info@sidemart.ca. Or visit the Segal Centre site.

Outrage is a very difficult emotion to sustain. Therefore I attended the second of Porte Parole’s one-act plays about the collapse of the Concorde Bridge in Laval with some trepidation. This play about the search for justice was a much more difficult one to mount. The extraordinary thing was that all the talk about lawyers and government reports (and an amazing incarnation of Julius Grey) managed to be moving and theatrical as well as relevant.

From the moment France Rolland walked on stage and began to prepare a large Italian meal and Stephan Blanchette vacuumed the stage using only one hand, the audience was transfixed. Using a real stove and real time to cook, the theatre was overwhelmed with comforting cooking smells while the cast began to juxtapose these with the horrors of what had happened to these seemingly ordinary people.

Brett Watson and Maude Laurendeau-Mondoux reprise their roles as the two actors who are investigating this horrific incident. The bridge collapsed and five people died and six were injured, and the inquiry into the incident decided to call the horrible event a “car accident”. The government reasoned that the SAAQ of Quebec could then compensate the victims, and all would be forgotten. It was unconscionable that the compensation was so very little and the damage to real lives was so deep and unforgivable.

The people who lived through this and their families, were still terribly traumatized when they were encouraged by the actors to come to a collective decision about whether to mortgage their lives and relative emotional recovery to pursue a legal battle with what Julius Grey calls “City Hall”. In the light of recent allegations and admissions about corruption at city hall and ironically in the road and construction industries, this play is an idea whose time has come.

Alex Ivanovici performs an inspired Julius Grey. He morphs brilliantly into an engineer willing to speak at trial for the victims, and does an astonishing comic turn as a sleazy Quebecois journalist who specializes in mob connections and civil corruption.

France Rolland is terrific as Marie Mercadante, the Italian wife of one of the survivors, and evokes a laugh with her description of the eighty women she can call on to raise money for the cause. Her performance as the mother of one of the deceased is gently nuanced with despair.

Stephan Blanchette did solid work as Claude Goyette the grief ridden father of one of the victims, and he was terrific as Mohamed Umberthandi, the injured husband of Maria. Paul Stewart is wonderful as Paul Cousineau. Maude Laurendeau-Mondoux is energetic as Maude the actress who just wants to do something, but she is unforgettable in her portrayal of the wheelchair ridden Louise Bedard.

The gentle humanizing hand of Carole Fréchette is clearly felt in this piece and André Perrier adds direction that is imaginative and original. Once again Annabel Soutar has packed a political punch and delivered an intriguing piece of theatre. While plans to overhaul the Turcot Exchange in Montreal could affect the future of our city for decades to come, the good citizens of Montreal would be wise (and well entertained) to see this play.

Sexy béton II: Justice, by Annabel Soutar, has its last showing tonight at the Segal Centre studio, 5170 Côte Ste. Catherine Rd. Performances at 7:30 p.m. Tickets: $22 adults; $10 students and seniors. Call 514-739-7944. Sexy béton III: Abandon runs January 11 – 21, 2010.

I will say it again, the three flights of stairs to the Freestanding Space makes one think: “This had better be worth it.” Hippies and Bolsheviks by Amiel Gladstone so very clearly is.

This simple and sweet story, about a young woman in the late nineteen sixties who brings a draft dodger home and soon has him in bed, was redolent (burning sage and all) of the innocence some of us remember with tremendous nostalgia. The play was homage to a time when a generation in this country believed that they could really be better than they actually were. They say that if you remember the sixties, you weren’t there. Well, I remember them and I was.

Miranda Handford was delightful as Star, the young woman at a crossroads who gave up life with her commune but was determined not to give up on love and having her baby. Thomas Preece is simply delightful as Jeff the goofy draft dodger who falls in love with Star and would even keep the rain from falling in Vancouver if he could. His comic timing was absolutely impeccable and his moments on stage were packed with tremendous energy. Brent Skagford seemed to play Green Tree, the hippie communard, with cool stoned flawless timing; his dorkier Allen was less graceful and a tad slow on the cues. But it was just a preview and one assumes that this would be much faster with some performance practice.

The space is so intimate that your feet practically touch the carpet where the young cast cavorts, which gives the event a bit of a peepshow kinkiness befitting the era being portrayed. The set was exactly as I remembered the transient digs of those days with amateur paintings and Haute Sally Ann design. Holly Simpson created an ambiance which was a perfect objective correlative to the play’s issues, dripping rain and groovy door hangings, and all.

Melissa Trotter provided a soft musical ambiance which gave the piece an emotional and aesthetic coherence. Her position and pin light were a perfect addition to an already terrific set.

Chelsea McIsaac embodies the sheer bravura of a character from the sixties, by putting her career on hold to produce and direct this play. She has created Girl Got Lost Productions, a new theatre company. She did this in Montreal, Quebec, at the height of a recession. And that, folks, is idealism at its best!

Her directing is still a bit shaky. The second act needs an “Italian” (a speedy rehearsal done in triple time). But this is a project worthy of the long climb and the hard chairs. If you are not a Boomer, then this is a great peek into a past well worth remembering; and if you were there, whether you remember it or not, it’s still worth the stairs!

Hippies and Bolsheviks continues at Freestanding Space (4324, boul. St-Laurent) through Dec. 5, with performances Wed. through Sat. Box Office: (514) 279 – 5219. Or email: girlgotlostproductions@gmail.com.

The final two one-acts of George F. Walker’s Suburban Motel Suite, Criminal Genius and Risk Everything, have been launched. Genuinely satisfying as theatre, the two served to provide a workout for laugh muscles I haven’t used in years.

Mathieu Perron directed Criminal Genius at an absolutely manic pace and got some terrific comic performances from his delightful cast.

Dom Pompeo plays the hapless and self declared victim father with a comic intensity that never loses momentum. Mike Payette gives a hilarious performance as his ill fated “slow” son. Tamara Brown is terrific as the “macha” crime leader who is seduced by her own violence and Shiong-En Chan shone with an intense kind of magic as the hostage turned empress of crime. George Bekiaris reprising his role as the alcoholic motel manager from Problem Child just walked away with the play. His one -liners were delivered perfectly and he made even the violent ending unbearably funny.

There are those who are not George Walker fans and have called this kind of play “theatre as slumming”. But if you do not take it all too seriously, this is a wonderful opportunity to see comedy live and really well done. The only drawback is a bit of oblique blocking which leaves audiences at Stage Left craning to see the madcap action.

Risk Everything, directed by Eric Hausknost, is a darker comedy with fewer guffaws but it offered the delight of watching actors in the full stride of their talent. Johanna Nutter as the Queen of Kvetch-mother-from-hell is flawless in her pacing and delivery. She never allows the tension to drop for an instant, and her most nefarious manipulation is totally credible.

Mike Hughs delivered a multifaceted performance as the hapless husband and low-life loser, first revealed in Problem Child. Joel Fishbane is back as the porn director from Featuring Loretta, after filming in the suite next door.

Joanna Sarazan was the straight man to Johanna and gave just the right amount of manic performer on a buzz to make the piece work. She is recognisable as the impossible mother of Problem Child, and manages to convince us of her dysfunctional relationship with both compliant husband and truly wicked mother.

There is an extended run for those of you who still wish to see first four plays. It is a delightful way to spend an otherwise bleak month in Montreal and I do not remember when I have laughed more. It is hugely encouraging to see so much talent, and in so brief a time; a reminder that while the granting agencies had their backs turned, theatre not only survived in this city, it flourished.

I am looking forward to the upcoming play readings and am grateful for the youth and energy that Tableau D’Hôte brought to this not so sweet suite of plays.

Criminal Genius and Risk Everything continue at MainLine Theatre through November 29. Following that, there will be one more showing of each duo of one-act plays: Tues., Dec. 1 – Problem Child (7 pm) and Adult Entertainment (9 pm); Wed., Dec. 2 - Featuring Loretta (7 pm) and The End of Civilization (9 pm); Thurs., Dec. 4 - Criminal Genius (7 pm) and Risk Everything (9 pm). For more details, check MainLine Theatre (3997 boul. St-Laurent) Box Office: (514) 849 – FEST (3378). Or the Tableau D’Hôte Theatre site.

Photo: Cindy Lopez.
From left: Dom Pompeo and Mike Payette (Tableau D’Hôte co-founder).

I admit to being an easy laugh and I certainly had a bellyful when the two jealous suitors in Featuring Loretta pulled all their slapstick bits. Liz Burns had a wonderful deadpan delivery which made her Russian chambermaid (daughter of ex-KGB kingpin who shouts too much) delightfully funny. George Walker knows how to set up his scenes and most important, he knows how to provide the actors with fabulous delivery.

The actual pace of the play was too slow, and I know that for non-professional actors, maintaining momentum the night after an opening can be a serious challenge. However, it is such a treat to be watching this well crafted play that one can forgive the timing.

Tommy Furino gave his performance just the right kind of caricature to make his obsession with Loretta work. Joel Fishbane was just sleazy enough to inhabit the porn director manqué he played. Best of all were the scenes with the two of them tripping over each other to win the lithesome Loretta.

In The End Of Civilization, Olivier Perras was able to inspire some very fine performances. Eric Hausknost, as Max the husband who has failed at finding a job and holding onto his home and family, was both compelling and heartbreaking. Denise DePass took a role full of transitions and perilous curves and managed to make the suburban Hausfrau utterly believable and the newly committed prostitute that she becomes, truly fine. Eric Davies played the same cop he excelled as in Adult Entertainment with just a bit more anger, and a laudable control. Patrick Charron seemed much more at ease reprising the persona of Donny. His performance was smoother and more focused than in Adult Entertainment. Catie Parsons as Sandy the unlovable Lady of the Night did a flawless star turn.

This is a dark and angry play from one of our best playwrights, and it is painfully relevant today. Tableau D’Hôte Theatre has done us a great service in mounting it. If you missed the first two plays in the Suburban Motel series, do not fail to see these. So far I am very impressed by this company and its ambitious and delightful work. We are privileged to have them and I wish them many more seasons.

FEATURING LORETTA – Nov. 17 – 22 7 pm (Nov. 21 & 22 2 pm); THE END OF CIVILIZATION – Nov. 17 – 22 9 pm (Nov. 21 & 22 4 pm). Box Office (514) 849 – FEST (3378). For more details, check out the Tableau D’Hôte Theatre Site. Mainline Theatre 3997, boul. St-Laurent.

When I lived in Toronto there was a story about George F. Walker that he would leave whatever comfortable digs he may have been living in, to stay at a seedy East Side hotel in order to write. It seems to have done wonders for this multiple award-winning and prodigious playwright. This offering by Tableau D’Hôte Theatre, in celebration of five years of producing Canadian plays, was thrilling.

This company has taken a huge risk by mounting the entire Suburban Motel suite. If the next productions are as energetic and emotionally explosive as Problem Child and Adult Entertainment, they will succeed, and we can only pray that they will enjoy many more years to come.

It is meet and seemly to enter a slightly graffiti laden door and climb the salubrious flight of stairs up to Mainline Theatre to see these plays about the seedier side of Toronto. The medium starts on Boulevard St. Laurent and the message packs a punch.

Problem Child about a former prostitute/drug addict and her ex-con husband speeds through some extraordinary twists to a fully satisfying conclusion. Mike Hughs was nail-bitingly perfect as the slightly functional hubby while Joanne Sarazen was utterly convincing as the mother of a child taken by the system. Catherine Lemieux went through the most deadpan lines, with perfect tone and timing, but it was George Bekiaris as the alcoholic motel maid of all trades who was disturbingly hilarious. Hughs and Sarazen were perfectly matched and they flawlessly circled and swept through the small claustrophobic set, never missing an emotionally charged beat. Liz Valdez is a thoroughly confident director working with intelligence and proficiency in the well designed setting.

Adult Entertainment about two rogue cops and the women who love them is more problematic. Liz Valdez and Eric Davis are splendid as Jayne and Max. Their interaction is torrid and cynical and completely believable. Patrick Charron had some good moments as the delirious Donny, but his focus sometimes veered when he was not playing drunk. Annie Lalonde also had a few terrific scenes and then seemed to get lodged into her head tomes for the second half of the play and could not get out of them. The directing was not as assured as it might have been and admittedly there were some difficult blocking problems, but they could have been resolved so that actors were not turning their backs and masking during key scenes.

There is something crazy and wonderful about seeing two of these plays in one night and I am so pleased that there are four more to relish. It is a privilege to witness well written theatre with actors such as Mike Hughs, Joanne Sarazen, George Bekiaris, Liz Valdez and Eric Davis. Valdez is a double threat because of her near perfect direction of Problem Child.

Most exciting of all is a new Canadian Works series that Tableau D’Hôte Theatre is launching this season. The venture into play development will fill a terrible gap in a community of playwrights who have been woefully neglected. They will workshop new scripts and stage a public reading. Bravo.

Suburban Motel suite consists of: PROBLEM CHILD – Nov. 10 – 15 7 pm (Nov. 14 & 15 2 pm); ADULT ENTERTAINMENT – Nov. 10 – 15 9 pm (Nov. 14 & 15 4 pm); FEATURING LORETTA – Nov. 17 – 22 7 pm (Nov. 21 & 22 2 pm); THE END OF CIVILIZATION – Nov. 17 – 22 9 pm (Nov. 21 & 22 4 pm); CRIMINAL GENIUS – Nov. 24 – 29 7 pm (Nov. 28 & 29 2 pm); RISK EVERYTHING – Nov. 24 – 29 9 pm (Nov. 28 & 29 4 pm). At MainLine Theatre, 3997, boul. St-Laurent. Box Office: (514) 849 – FEST (3378). Or: Tableau D’Hôte Theatre

Before the opening performance of Be My Baby, the artistic director of Persephone Theater reminded the audience that this was a very special theatre company dedicated to giving emerging young professionals work opportunities. Gabrielle Soskind is a lovely person and her mandate is very important to a community long beleaguered by a dearth of opportunities. This was not a play that fulfilled the vision of this mandate.

Amanda Whittington’s Be My Baby is about four young woman in the early sixties who are living in a religious home for pregnant unmarried girls, and are forced to give up their babies for adoptions. This is an important story, for the generation who do not remember the meaning of back street abortions. It is a reminder to those of us who organized marches and protested until the oppressive laws were humanized.

The four young girls in the play were not given a chance to bring us the emotional torment that such as they experienced. Besides the shrill delivery of the dialogue, there was a constant leitmotif of bubble gum pop songs from the era that was sugary enough to threaten the listener with diabetes.

The inane lyrics were supposed to be juxtaposed to the horror of the experience, but unfortunately they just underlined the really weak dialogue. The play was suffering from an identity crisis. The performers spoke in Canadian English, but the syntax and vocabulary like “bloke” “lass” and “nappies” were British.

The pace was really slow, and the emotional moments, like the birthing of a baby in an attic room, were so underplayed, that they had the drama and impact of a bad cold. I have seen Nadia Verrucci perform magnificently and she did her best as the mother of one of the girls, but she seemed to be working against impossible odds. She was very nervous, and her husband had been in Burma and he had to be lied to about his daughter’s condition. This is an interesting set up, but there is never any delivery.

When Aimee Rose Ambroziak, as Queenie, is told by Stevie Pemberton playing Mary that she can’t sing, she barely reacts. She has supposedly built her hopes on becoming a pop singer to escape the suffocating life she will return to after her birthing. Amanda Margelony had a few dramatic moments as Norma, only to be used as a plot devise to send Jessica Grant as Dolores to the sick room.

The play did not really come across as a professional performance. The penultimate scene was too pristine to be believable, and the performers did not deliver the characters in a memorable fashion.

I do wish Persephone Theatre would produce better plays, preferably ones which speak to what is happening here today and to us.

Be My Baby plays through November 14 at Studio Hydro Quebec at the Monument National (St. Laurent near the corner of René Lévesque). Box Office: 514 871 2224. For more information check the Persephone Productions site.

If you are an aficionado of chamber theatre and minimalist dialogue, this is the event for you. In a space that feels like someone’s den, on the third floor of a building on St. Laurent Boulevard that used to house the Playwrights workshop, Free Standing Productions has created a little theatrical gem.

Johanna Nutter and Paula Costain deftly play the two slightly bizarre sisters. They exchange dialogue and hand off power and dominance in smooth and pitch perfect performances. Nutter’s Isobel is utterly believable as the debilitated suicidal sibling. Paula is mesmerizing as her lively alter ego who is strangely disturbed and thrilled by the drifting, drifting snow.

It was a delight to watch two such professional actors wind their way through the dialogue and bring the play to its inevitable conclusion. There were some drawbacks to the use of such a space. The bathroom we were informed was hors service during the show and three flights of stairs make it clear that the target audience is limber and young.

There was a kind of novelty in sitting so close to the action, and at one point I did worry that Paula Costain would spill some of her martini on the person sitting next to me. The chamber nature of the performance made the direction particularly challenging and Tanner Harvey used several quite inventive moves and devices to keep it interesting and believable.

The strength of this piece is in the remarkable performances, but I am afraid I must say that these actors could have made a phone book delightful. The writing of the piece was too precious, and worked hard at the repetitions and patterns used by other well known dramatists. In Ned Cox’s Duplicity Girls, it was hit or miss, and needed some serious dramaturgy to keep from circling back at itself.

I confess the angst and despair of two upper middle class sisters does not intrigue me, and there were moments when the young man across the street cooking in front of an unshaded window distracted me from the action that was unfolding quite literally under my nose.

However, the experience is worth the climb up the steep staircase and the acting and directing were good enough to make this a truly interesting piece of theatre.

Duplicity Girls runs at through November 1 at The Freestanding Room, 4324 blvd. St-Laurent, Thursdays through Sundays, 8 pm. Only 30 seats per show so book early. Box Office: Call to reserve, then pay cash at the door. (514) 759-4671

Haunted, Paul Van Dyck’s play about the Great Amherst Mystery, is a hit. From the moment the cello and violin music greet the audience in the hall at the back of St. James Church, you know that you are in truly professional theatrical hands. Even the most skeptical of us can enjoy the seamless playwriting, the flawless direction and truly inspired acting in this event.

The bizarre story features the awful and macabre events that ensued after a simple barmaid was taken for a ride on the Marsh Road by her peculiar boyfriend. Esther Cox managed to befuddle the medical profession, baffle the religious community and was even imprisoned for the activities of her poltergeist. Most peculiar is that all these events actually happened and were written about in great profusion.

There is even a touch of comedy as Ester’s sister, performed delightfully by Alexandra Haber, and brother-in-law, portrayed very effectively by Carlo Mestroni, abandon her to the wiles of a travelling thespian who takes her “spiritualist” act on the road. The thespian is amusingly depicted by Paul Van Dyck, who directed the play with a terrific sense of timing and imagination.

The play had the simplest set, and very effective lighting which was enhanced by the animation of Jeremy Eliosoff. The space was occupied so intelligently that the movements and noises off stage reached brilliant proportions. At one point someone next to me mentioned that they hoped there was an actual priest in the building in case things got out of hand.

Esther Cox was excellently played by Catherine Bérubé. She managed to bring all the bravado of a young woman in defiance of society, and the vulnerability of a small town ingénue into the story of possession. Eric Davis played the clumsy doctor who succumbs to his own medicine in the end. He was just stiff enough at the start and inarticulate at the finish to give Dr. Carritte power and credibility. Kyle Gatehouse was competent as Bob MacNeal, the boyfriend from hell, but it might have served the really strong cast to have a Bob with more punch.

Daniel Giverin is a fine actor and apparently a wonderful music director and fiddler. Trevor Smith was delightful on the cello, and this is one of those plays in which the sound was crucial to the plot, and added to the climax of the story.

I am not a great fan of the horror and ghost genres, but I have to admit that seeing a well crafted, beautifully directed and brilliantly performed play was a great treat. The weather was appropriately dark and wet as the play let out, and I recommend that everyone chance a storm to see this work.

Haunted runs through Oct. 25, and again from Oct. 27-31 at Dawson Hall, St. James United Church. 463 Ste-Catherine West. Entrance: 1440, rue St-Alexandre. Tickets: General ($20): Tuesdays (2 for 1). Box Office: (514) 303–7646.