Two gentle people of the better sort were waiting for us at the opera. They had paid something like a firstborn for the privilege and I was not about to disappoint. I wore the gown normally reserved for Café Cleopatra, and the Standard Opera Companion wore nothing at all; just a litre of burning gasoline that had to be messily replenished every forty minutes. We didn’t expect to be upstaged by the show.

Opéra de Montréal displayed an unfamiliar amount of good taste on Friday with their new production of Gounod’s Faust. It is the finest production I’ve heard in Montreal and the first time the opera here has played to its strengths.

The casting was superb, featuring four young talents that came up through the Atelier Lyrique. Etienne Dupuis (Valentin), a charmer whose voice is blooming in front of our ears. I barely believed mine; I thought he was doomed to light comedy. Mezzo Emma Parkinson, her lovely voice the colour of tea, though she was sometimes overmatched by her trousers role as the faithful Siébel; baritone Philip Kalmanovitch, who brought joy to the stage totally out of proportion to his minor part; and Antoine Bélanger as Faust.

The Bélanger tenors, father and son, have cornered the market. It is an attractive gamble to pair them up as Old Faust and Young Faust, but neither had the charisma of the younger Montrealers or the evening’s two imports, Russian bass Alexander Vinogradov and the American soprano Mary Dunleavy. The elder Bélanger had tragedy in his step but sounded thin and disappeared in the trio, while the younger was solid but faded against the copious talent onstage.

Vinogradov was the star of the evening; one of those unforgettable singers like aliens who emit beautiful sounds the way other people cough. His voice will carry him to the top and his joyfulness should keep him there.

What was grandmother’s response to my ebullient praise for Vinogradov? To suggest he had been “grown” by the KGB and that I should drink less. I didn’t mention any warm feelings for the American then, but since my grandmother doesn’t read English (on principle), I can say it now: Mary Dunleavy is the world’s most advanced Brita filter. Her pianissimo is like a paper airplane.

The orchestra had a wonderful new charioteer, Emmanuel Plasson, refreshingly liberal with the whip. And sets and direction were perhaps the biggest surprise, coming from the same team that brought us the impressive banality of La Bohème (they have evidently left the island since). Particularly clever was the use of a demonic gang to rearrange the minimal, modular set, a cue for the machinations that our anti-hero had enmeshed himself in.

I’m afraid this alignment of luck and intelligent decisions might never happen again, so go see this production. And take somebody; it is good enough to mint new opera fans.

Faust continues the 22^nd, 24^th, and 26^th. For more information see www.operademontreal.com.

A professor of criminal law at the University of Chicago, Bernard Harcourt regularly takes his classes to prison, where many are traumatized by what they see. But his students are privy to only the tip of the iceberg. Before going to graduate school, Harcourt worked as an attorney with Death Row inmates in Alabama. In between motions and arguments, he recalls the dehumanizing grind of the administration of justice: “They would bring in twenty-five to thirty guys to be processed. And it was usually twenty-five African American young men, chained to each other in jumpsuits. Chained around the waist, arms chained to the waist, shackles on their legs… And I remember sitting in these courtrooms and thinking, it was as if the slave ship had just come into port.”

Harcourt’s latest book, The Illusion of Free Markets, does not offer a personal account of the abuses of criminal justice. Instead, it looks at prison practices from a long historical view, asking how mass incarceration can exist in a society that supposedly values freedom above all else. The Illusion of Free Markets is a bold attempt to connect much of his earlier work on the growing reach of the American police state with the neoliberal ideology that so often accompanies it: how mass incarceration can coexist with the resilient consensus in American politics that regulation of economic markets is inherently inefficient and economically detrimental—in short, with the belief that markets should be free.

Harcourt demonstrates that the peaceful coexistence of market deregulation with increased policing of criminal behavior is completely fundamental to liberal thinking. He provocatively argues that this connection between principled support of free markets and the belief that criminal regulation, policing, and punishment is the proper domain of government—two prominent components of Rightist ideology in Canada as well as the United States—has a long and ingrained history.

He traces its origins to the theory of “natural order” first developed in the eighteenth century by the French Physiocrats, who believed that human relationships in what they defined as the “marketplace” tended to be naturally orderly. Marketplaces had to be left alone, since excessive tinkering with their mechanisms would disrupt the naturally ordered flow of goods and exchange. At the same time, however, these original liberals believed that individuals who were unnatural or dérèglés had to be policed and governed to an unlimited extent. Some behaviors, they arbitrarily deemed, did not conform to the laws of nature, and thus were unequivocally “out of order.”

As The Illusion of Free Markets shows, these governmental measures are not distinct, self-enclosed, or unrelated. Rather, they are part of a single governmental logic, which he calls neoliberal penality. It is because of neoliberal penality that Conservatives can simultaneously argue that government jobs are inherently inefficient and must be cut, while expanding government spending and bureaucracy for harshly punishing trivial violations based on arbitrary distinctions between “orderly” and “disorderly” behavior. Neoliberal voters, politicians and policymakers experience no cognitive dissonance at these ideas precisely because of the naturalized notion that market relationships are natural and efficient, while criminal activities need to be forcefully policed because they are inefficient. Neoliberal penality explains, though does not justify, how “the Harper Government” can suggest without irony that the interests of freedom are best served by the privatization of national resources, while an increasing number of behaviors must be criminalized and punished with jail sentences of unprecedented length.

Whether or not one agrees with Harcourt’s argument about the necessary connection between liberal markets and harsh criminal policing, the book offers much evidence against the simplistic and ill-informed debate between pro- and anti-regulation advocates, which propagates incomplete understandings of the mechanisms of economic regulation and naïve understandings of the “free market” as completely unregulated.

The Illusion of Free Markets is a welcome and much-needed corrective to the abusive language of “free markets”, which has little analytical substance but lends significant credibility to deregulatory rhetoric and the economic tyranny of rich corporations. As Harcourt points out, there is no such thing as a market that is not governed by rules and policed by governments and laws. Rather than pretending that markets are naturally “efficient” and government rules inherently “inefficient,” he shows, we should be looking lucidly at how the regulations that invariably exist in marketplaces distribute resources in favor of some people and to the disadvantage of others.

The ideal free markets invoked by deregulatory advocates are as real as manticores but infinitely more dangerous, since they are fodder for a Conservative rhetoric that blinds people to the fact that “deregulation” is a euphemism for “seizure of power.”

Like many books of its type, including the works of Noam Chomsky, Joel Bakan, and Naomi Klein, The Illusion of Free Markets sheds lights on the coherence of otherwise inchoate forms of social oppression, and gives us a language for identifying and critiquing them.

PHOTO: Limestone Correctional Facility, USA. Prisoners on a chain gang on their way to a work detail. Andrew Holbrooke, 1995.

“Everybody wants to – when they get to a certain age – go back and do the things they didn’t have time to do, you know?” begins Antoine Bélanger.  Nearby, his father Guy Bélanger nods and smiles in agreement.  “Youth”, he adds, ““is energy and beauty…and it’s a dream for him.”  They speak of course of Faust, the man who sells his soul for a second chance in Charles Gounod’s classic opera, which brings l’Opéra de Montréal’s 2011/12 season to a close this week.

“He asks the Devil to let him return to his youth so he can feel the love of a woman,” the younger Bélanger continues, retelling the story of the lead character’s descent into tragedy.  “This guy was a ‘brain’ and spent all his life as a scientist in his laboratory, and suddenly he figures out that he didn’t live and didn’t feel anything.  ‘God let me go! God didn’t do anything to help me!’  That was a funny thing to say at the time.”

Though it isn’t clear which period in time he’s referring to – 1859, when Gounod’s completed opera was first performed, or 1808, when Goethe’s Faust: The First Part of the Tragedy was published in Germany – his meaning is clear.  The question of whether or not virtue is its own reward remains a controversial one.  Should we aspire towards knowledge and enlightenment at the expense of a personal life?  Does the pursuit of pleasure corrupt us, or is love our only salvation?  These are the issues at play in Faust, a work that has been continually reinterpreted over the years.

Legendary filmmaker F.W. Murnau’s take on the timeless tale resulted in a stunning silent film back in 1926, though Bélanger was first exposed to the story through the opera.  “I was like, ten years old and I saw it because I went to see my father in Quebec City.”  Guy Bélanger, a conductor and singer, founded the Société lyrique d’Aubigny in 1968 and also performed the title role of Faust.  This time around, he shares the part with his son, who couldn’t be more pleased.

“My mother spoke about it, twelve years ago, back when I started singing.  ‘Ahh, if you are of the same voice, one day your father will be able to do the older part and you’ll do the younger one!’  I was like, ‘ come on Mom, I’m just starting.  Let me do my thing for a couple of years!’”  Now, with performances in La Traviata and La Bohème under his belt, Antoine is stepping into the spotlight as the younger version of the old scientist, transformed by the scheming and sinister Méphistophélès (played by Russia’s Alexander Vinogradov).

Seeking to play up the timelessness of the story, Stage Director Alain Gauthier has chosen a series of 28-foot bookshelves for his somewhat abstract set.  This “wall of knowledge that fills up Salle Wilfred-Pelletier” will rotate and move within the space to suggest everything from Faust’s laboratory to the garden in which innocent Marguerite (American Soprano Mary Dunleavy) sings the charming “Ah!  Je ris de me voir si belle en ce miroir”. Gauthier is also making full use of the talents of his leads by having the elder Faust remain present throughout the entire course of the show, instead of just the opening scene.  As Antoine explains, it was a case of “why don’t we use old one to deal with the devil, because he did the deal with him.”  Audiences will therefore be watching both father and son on-stage for the duration, as Young Faust woos his lover Marguerite and Old Faust deals with Mephisto.  “As he sings certain phrases with the Devil,” he says with a nod to his father, “those phrases will be in my mind so I’ll have to feel those emotions and questions.  We will have to be very present and focused.”

During rehearsal, it’s obvious they’re both already on the same page.  As the chorus tries to find their way around the ever-changing set (“This’ll be an Olympic sport – Synchronized Columns!” they laugh), a conversation begins between the two Bélangers and Vinogradov.  The question is whether or not Mephisto should take the Old Faust’s cane away, as a symbol of his restored vitality.  The Bélangers remind him that Old Faust still requires his cane, since Young Faust is a separate entity, the total personification of youth.  The debate continues for a few moments more and then, for the first time in the history of Faust, the Devil relents.  Who can blame him?  The poor guy’s outnumbered.

Maybe this won’t be such a tragedy after all.

FAUST plays until May 26^th.  For ticket information visit www.operademontreal.com.

As much as I’d like to declare it the end of an era, to do so would be a bit of a stretch. After all, the Blue Sunshine Cinema will only be two years old when it closes its doors for the final time tonight. Not long enough to be an era, even by the standards of journalist hacks like myself, who have a hard time resisting hyperbole (not to mention cliché).

But for those of us who managed to attend various screenings during Blue Sunshine’s brief run, know the city is really losing something with its passing. The cinema’s founders, Kier-La Janisse and David Bertrand, did their best to create a welcoming environment for a small group of people (maximum seating: 47) in a large third-floor apartment on St. Laurent Blvd that they also lived in. Blue Sunshine, which the founders dubbed “Montreal’s Psychotronic Film Centre,” consistently screened cinema that was entirely off the radar of a suburban-mall multiplex—which, of course, is what made is so good.

The space was fittingly named after the uber-strange 1978 cult movie Blue Sunshine, written and directed by Jeff Lieberman. The plot involves one man who is wrongly accused of a spree killing at a party. While on the lam, the murders continue, and our hero learns that otherwise-innocent people are turning into mad psychotic killers because they all had the bad luck of dropping the same batch of bad acid ten years ago.

Which set the tone for the kinds of films Janisse and Bertrand would screen, an entirely wonky, off-kilter roster of movies that they insisted on showing in 16mm. Their last program included oddities like Saturn 3, the 1980 sci-fi feature that starred Kirk Douglas, Farrah Fawcett and Harvey Keitel. Another crowd pleaser also from 1980, Battle Beyond the Stars, was Roger Corman’s effort to tap into the fascination with all things Star Wars. But Janisse and Bertrand also featured powerful local-con, including Ladies and Gentleman… Mr. Leonard Cohen (1965) and Winter Kept Us Warm (1966), the groundbreaking gay-themed film that was shot entirely on the University of Toronto campus and that David Cronenberg cites as one of the things that inspired him to get into filmmaking.

“Kier-La and I dreamt of having our own alternative venue,” Bertrand explains. “Blue Sunshine was the place I wanted to be in, the place I wanted to hang out. I loved introducing the films before we screened them. It felt like I was hanging out at a friend’s place. We nailed the vibe we wanted.”

Bertrand says a highlight came on their first birthday, when they screened the venue’s namesake, Blue Sunshine, with director Jeff Lieberman there to introduce it. “That was a real honour.”

There were also headaches. After the Fantasia screening of the 2011 horror anthology The Theatre Bizarre, the Blue Sunshine space hosted the after party. “We really weren’t prepared for quite so many people showing up all at once,” recalls Bertrand. “That was pretty tense.” Among the crowd of 150 was iconic actor Udo Kier, director Tom Savini and local hero Karim Hussain. “We ran out of alcohol quickly though, so people eventually moved on to another spot,” says Bertrand.

Bertrand concedes the closing of Blue Sunshine “feels sad, but it’s probably more sad for the public then for me. It was a stressful thing to manage, though I did enjoy it. It was a short run, but I feel like we really did have an impact.”

Not surprisingly, Bertrand will be working for the Fantasia Film Festival this summer, where Janisse will be launching her book, House of Psychotic Women (FAB Press).

I’m one of those greatly saddened by the loss of Blue Sunshine. While there, I felt like I’d entered the secret movie clubhouse of a bunch of people with whom I could feel comfortable being my strange, film-geek self. There, a bunch of strange people would gather to watch strange films for a strange thrill. Any true cineaste will tell you, the best way to watch a great film is with a great crowd. The screenings were a reminder of how powerful the collective experience of watching a film can be.

Blue Sunshine’s farewell party happens tonight, May 18 at 8pm, 3660 St. Laurent.

My friends had always spoken well about MAI over the years, and I was curious to find out more. Knowing a little about its mandate to promote artists from diverse cultural backgrounds, I decide to check out the curtain raiser for their annual cabaret, ECLECTIK and the institution itself.

Running May 25-26, ECLECTIK features dancers, writers, actors, songwriters, musicians and interdisciplinary artists. About thirty artists in 13 mini performances reflect the theme ailleurs ici (elsewhere here), which also informs their overall programming for the year.

The show consists of emerging artists that MAI has recently mentored, others they have worked with over the years, as well as those already cutting the edges of their work. Quebec City-born Caroline Keating will perform Montreal, from her debut album Silver Heart, “a song that questions the idea of home and the desire to belong to one.” This singer, songwriter, pianist is making waves on the local scene and beyond.

Dancer-choreographer Sophia Gaspard, originally from Haiti, draws “on a fierce and raw energy to create structured improvisation as she tackles the subject of racialized women living with disabilities and grappling with isolation.” Moheb Soliman, a writer and performer from the US and Egypt, will present his piece Brag to Me, described as “a mock-lecture, vacation slides with an eccentric host, a re-enactment and recitation of an inner-landscape that is nevertheless drawn from the real world.”

As if this isn’t far out enough, Jason Levine’s Xululululuuum conjures up a “shamanistic experience” for the audience by creating an immersive audiovisual environment. Levine, a Montreal-based performance artist, musician and creative coder, writes a specific computer program for each show. “My current work focuses on projecting visualizations of my voice onto and around my body while I perform,” he says.

This is the 5^th edition of ECLECTIK; MAI itself is 13 years old. The organization is housed in a stone building on a quiet, leafy corner of Jeanne-Mance, a few blocks up from the Quartier des Spectacles and just down from the Mountain. A small theatre, an art gallery and a spacious café serve MAI’s unique mandate: to nurture and promote the work of intercultural artists from diverse cultural and artistic backgrounds and foster an appreciation of artistic practices rooted in non-Western traditions, build links with cultural communities in Montreal and provide a space for research, experimentation, dialogue and exchange within this context.

Art produced by “minority” artists in Canada can be misunderstood and misrepresented. Artists who immigrate here have legitimate training and experience in their home countries, yet their art may be dismissed as amateurish, folkloric, traditional, or seen as community work.

“There is a big need for a place like MAI,” said Régine Cadet, General Manager and Artistic Director of MAI. “Thirty to forty artists approach us every year, and we can only showcase about a dozen.”

MAI provides support in the form of short and long-term mentorships. In the former case, they may loan technical equipment or offer studio space, help an artist write a grant or provide resources for media promotion. When it comes to long-term mentorships, approximately five artists do an intensive, one-year, residency program at MAI every year.

“At first we were only presenters,” said Cadet. “Then we realized that this was not enough.” The artists needed much more support in order to develop their careers, so MAI started putting them in touch with relevant organizations and initiated exchanges with galleries and museums all over Canada. They formed partnerships with institutions like Conseil des arts et des letters Québec, Conseil des arts de Montréal, Place des arts, CBC Radio, etc. And organized seminars, workshops and other events of an educational nature to further understanding and linkages.

MAI collaborates with various artistic companies in Montreal and works with the organizers of culturally diverse festivals like Acès Asie, which highlights the work of artists with an Asian connection; Lusarts, with a focus on pluridisciplinary artists with a link to Portuguese speaking countries, the Black Theatre Company, Latinarte, which offers a window on Latin-American culture, and so on.

There is a conscious effort to reach people in diverse communities. “If we are featuring an artist who’s originally from Columbia, then we make a link with that community,” said Michael Toppings, MAI’s Director of Production and Projects. “There’s a sense that we exist for them. They can use our facilities for free and keep the ticket money. They may use our café for a launch.” This also helps MAI cultivate an audience, which is not a given, considering their ambitious mandate and off-the-beaten track programming.

How does MAI define intercultural arts? “It is art that comes from a dialogue between two or more cultures,” Toppings explains. Take Gibson Muriva who learnt traditional dance forms in his home country, Zimbabwe, and began his professional career with the National Ballet of Zimbabwe. When he came here, he started taking contemporary dance classes, ultimately creating a dynamic, hybrid form. This was made possible partially through support from MAI and Conseil des arts de Montréal.

“With theatre that might translate more into subject matter as opposed to form,” Toppings continued. “So here we are interested in artists who are talking about experiences particular to them, like immigration, displacement, racism. Then there is another sub level which is interarts and interdisciplinary arts where artists fuse different disciplines like music, art, video, spoken words and so on.”

Canadian First Nations’ artists also fall within MAI’s purview. Last year, for Journée de la Culture, they had a public rehearsal by Lara Kramer, a Montreal-based choreographer and interpreter whose work is inspired by her aboriginal roots. In parallel, they held a panel discussion that featured young aboriginal women artists who talked about their role in terms of community and artistic expression. “We see aboriginal artists as integral to the MAI but also as very independent. They have their own entity,” said Toppings.

Artists like Patrick Graham and Jason Levine who are not from a minority community still fit MAI’s mandate. Graham, a percussionist who has learnt to play drums from all over the world has been described as a “master improviser who… stands at the border of several forms of traditional and creative music.” Levine integrates multimedia and world music, with creations inspired by world cultures.

MAI’s year-long program includes interdisciplinary performances, as well as shows that highlight a single discipline be it dance, music, spoken word, visuals arts or theatre. It tries to find a balance between emerging and established, better-known artists. For example, this year they brought in the internationally acclaimed dancer-choreographer and dramaturge Su-Feh Lee’s The Whole Beast. Founder of the Battery Opera in Vancouver, Lee is originally from Malaysia.

“She has been working is the dance field for 15-20 years,” said Toppings. “We wanted to present a mature artist. She mixes martial arts and contemporary dance. She had a whole narrative about being brought up in Malaysia with her grandparents that was very rich culturally.” While in Montreal Lee did a two-week residence, offering workshops and doing a number of studio visits with artists.

“We are setting the groundwork for a Montreal of the future,” said Toppings. “It’s obvious that as artists immigrate here they are going to mix their own specific cultural influences with existing culture to bring in a new cultural presence.”

Cadet would like to see diverse artists who are already in Canada being invited to perform, rather than companies and theatres bringing artists down, say, all the way from Japan.

“We are fighting for the rights of immigrant artists and representing their interests on many committees on diversity,” she said. She pointed out that the last three years saw the emergence of organizations promoting diverse artists like Vision Diversité, Diversité Artistique Montréal and Culture Montréal. And yet, says Cadet, there is still a long way to go.

Nicholas Voeikoff-Erens’ colourful acrylic-on-newsprint wall hangings are at once visual and sculptural, borrowing from design but bypassing cliché. Using paint to highlight images and stories on the printed pages and block out advertising, he effectively alters the content of the news. The result is far from museum objects. Each two-sided piece is meant to be touched. As the viewer moves around the different images, the play of light reveals as much as is conceals.

Currently showing at the Segal Centre’s ArtLounge, these delightfully off-beat twisting, swirling, flapping creations bridge the gap between canvas and sculpture, print and painting, figurative and abstract art as they tell whatever stories the onlooker chooses to read into them.

In the exhibition catalogue, he writes “In it’s raw state the newspaper is a babble of claims and counter claims and look at me and look at me and look at me … all vying for my attention and encroaching upon my visual landscape. As an active response I paint to break down that overwhelming clamoring of everybody hawking their wares in the market place. I damp it by pulling a blind over it, with paint. Metaphorically, I close the window and create my personal space.”

The Montreal artist of Russian and Dutch heritage began his artistic career as a student at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts School of Art and Design in the late 1960’s when the “painting is dead” orthodoxy of the day was a challenge for many young artists struggling to realize their own visions.

Much of what he has done in the last 40 years has been a personal attempt to look at painting in a new way and to explore its full potential. An evolving process, he says, one that took a long time to figure out before he arrived at a format that works as both media and message.

Erens freely acknowledges that his work is on the periphery of the art scene and laments the fact that so much of the contemporary discourse about art is focused on its public character rather than the private experience of art. “Not everyone gets it,” he says.

Still, a number of galleries have been “willing to be surprised.” In the last couple of years he’s had a string of shows in Montreal, Toronto, and Chicago and will be off to Hong Kong by the end of May to lecture at the Hong Kong Design Institute where his work will also be exhibited.

The exhibition continues through May 24 at the Segal Centre, 5170 Côte-Ste-Catherine

www.segalcentre.org

Le Bancs d’Essai Internationaux brings together dancers and choreographers from around the world to put the newest generation of dance on display. The biannual tour ended its Montreal run Saturday night before heading to Europe.

Though the performers came from diverse regions throughout Italy, Canada, France, The Netherlands, and Wales, a common thread ran through the night.  Multimedia, once a novel addition to put dance-based pieces in the often provocative territory of interdisciplinary performance, has become the status quo.  The question of adding a video backdrop now seems as necessary a consideration as the number of dancers onstage.

Babacar Cissé, a French dancer and choreographer performed his solo piece “Le Syndrome de L’Exilé,” winning the award for the most compelling interaction with his AV self. Always with his signature blend of styles, including African, jazz, salsa, and breakdance, Cissé tried to keep up with his projected shadow as it multiplied, shrunk, expanded, challenged and even taunted him.

Later, on screen, Cissé struggled to escape from a bowl of water, and then quite literally splashed into reality. He glided across the water that had been thrown onto stage, flopped around like a beached fish, and eventually turned the slippery terrain into a source of momentum for never-ending spins: an appropriate metaphor for a piece exploring the difficulty of leaving one’s native land and adapting to a different environment.

Presentented by Montreal’s Tangente was “Corps: Relations” by Maria Kefirova. This was a remounted version of her work originally produced in 2010. While the real Kefirova went about her stage business, her recorded head floated inside a television set discussing the realities of living with one’s body. I saw this piece in rehearsal a few weeks ago during Québec Danse. On Saturday, it was obvious that Kefirova had achieved at least one of the piece’s goals – the audience was laughing.  Kefirova and her artistic consultant/répétrice Florence Figols had worked hard to create something beyond a one-way interaction between Kefirova and her virtual self. They wanted to find the game between “Maria, Virtual Maria, and the audience.” As Kefirova balanced on her head and tossed chunks of potato into her open mouth on the screen, it was clear everyone wanted to take part in the fun.

“Unattaching,” a resonant duo choreographed by Wales’ Tanja Råman, perfectly blended dynamic butoh-inspired movement with immersive sound, video, and lights designed by John Collingswood. Projected close-ups of the dancers gave the illusion of displaying a hidden interiority alongside their physical form.

Two performances on the bill made their world premiere here in Montreal. “Bianconido,” choreographed and interpreted by Italy’s Daniele Ninarello (pictured), is a chilling account of the moment “between thought and action.” Fear pervaded the first half of the work. The lighting intermittently turned the audience into an active participant in the piece, but the looming mass of spectators only increased the threats and antagonism bombarding Ninarello.

The second premiere, sharply contrasting the despair of Ninarello’s work was “The Fifteen Project,” choreographed by Arno Schuitemaker. It began with two regular guys in jeans and plaid shirts stepping out of the audience to perform a duo in the truest sense of the word. They went through a series of pointing gestures increasing in speed and intricacy into a contact-based pas-de-deux. The throwing, falling, and catching of one another enforced that neither was in full control, but rather, always relying on the interaction between them.

Arno Schuitemaker’s piece asked the question, “How do we establish a rapport with the people and things we see?”  Perhaps that’s what the Bancs d’Essai Internationaux attempted to answer by bringing such disparate artists together.  How the relationship played out between them was up to you to decide.

A characteristic of almost any historical novel, regardless of its other qualities, is the tendency toward the spectacular: the evocation through sensual detail of the daily life of a time and place (the quirky habits of people who live without electricity, eat strange foods, hold quaint ideas disproven long before our own time). One can reasonably expect this kind of pleasure from a novel set in, say, 18^th-century Russia, and Eva Stachniak’s The Winter Palace delivers.

I wouldn’t call it lush, or incredibly detailed; the description is surprisingly repetitive, and some details feel as if they were lifted directly from research. At times it is as if the author is following a template, for example frequently mentioning odours to set a scene even when they have nothing much to do with the action. But the story moves along and is pleasant enough to keep a reader moving along with it.

The main character, like the author, is Polish. Unlike the author, our heroine Varvara becomes, through several unlikely twists of fate, a servant of the Russian Empress Elizabeth, daughter of Peter the Great. Through the sponsorship of an important diplomat, Varvara rises to become an intimate servant of the Empress, massaging her feet late at night, hearing her wandering thoughts or private complaints. Varvara’s diplomatic patron trains her in the various arts and ruses of the spy. She loiters and eavesdrops in corridors, snoops through documents of state and sealed letters, sniffs the air for the scents of passing lovers.

This is a clever move on Stachniak’s part, because it allows Varvara access to information about the workings of court that she, a mere maid, would otherwise never have.  Stachniak uses this privileged access to help Varvara overhear, glimpse, or participate in the political course of the Empress’s reign and, after her death, the beginning of the reign of Catherine the Great. Unfortunately it is really not enough to make the reader believe that our heroine, who is bright but not otherwise in any way exceptional, could actually know everything we see her find out. Much of the story feels contrived in order to reveal a piece of information she could not have known otherwise, and she seems at times to ignore the lessons of secrecy we are told she learned so well.

The political history, which governs so much of the course of this novel, is weakened by the narrowness of Varvara’s perspective. For example, we hear of the brewing conflict between nations as Varvara observes the future Tsar wearing one day a green uniform, one day a blue one, signifying seesawing allegiances. A few broad strokes to situate the events at court within the very wide range of European history would have expanded the power of the story dramatically; as it is, the reader sees just the shadows of great events as they pass over a few individuals. The end of the tale, in which Varvara retires to a country estate after the accession of Catherine the Great to the throne, is anticlimactic, generated not so much by the events of Varvara’s life but rather by the shape of the planned sequel, which will obviously be the story of Catherine’s reign.

The book is also weakened by errors; for example, misused verbs (e.g. “…Cossacks danced, jutting out their legs…”) and adjectives and prepositions (“The Chief Seamstress … stepped back, marred with resentment for being overlooked.” ), or lack of agreement of tenses (“If she succeeds, Darya and I would never go without.”).  She uses “weaved” where “woven” is needed. There are also infelicities, such as “Its appeal has little allure…”

While these errors are not serious enough to get in the way of understanding, they happen often enough to intrude on one’s attention. And while such small errors are forgivable in a writer who has created a very readable book in a language not her mother tongue, an editor should have made sure the story’s flow was not interrupted by these oddities in what is otherwise an entertaining story.

Haunted Hillbilly is a great whopping romp of a play and a fabulous send up of all the country and western clichés one has come to know. There is also a touch of the gothic as naïve Hyram Woodside (played with infectious energy by Mathew Raudsepp) sells his soul to the evil cowboy couturier, Nudie. Greg Kramer is magnificent in his role as the cowboy designer who has serious designs on  the young Hyram, bringing a kind of poignancy to the vampire Mephistopheles persona.

Hyram discovers that in order to achieve the stardom that Nudie offers, he must betray the woman he loves and give up his own reach for happiness. Graham Cuthbertson, who adapted Derek McCormack’s novel for the stage, plays a slimy but wonderful Pastor Ray, warning us from the get-go that this is a “cautionary tale.” In short, do not hang out with gay vampire couturiers and then let them manage your careers.

Daniel Bruchu is truly unfettered in his role as Erskine Mole, the king of country, and his performance is a stomp in the country ho-down style of the play. Kyle Gatehouse is terrific as Nudie’s side kick, Dr. Wertham. With just a raised eyebrow he was capable of bringing the house down. Katie Smith is delightful as  the tough Audrey Woodhouse, and Alexis Taylor is wonderful as Bobbi.

There was the captivating score of Matthew Barber. And the band was perfect in their music and interaction with the cast. There was also the professional hand of Andrew Shaver directing. Susana Vera did the costumes proud.

The play is a sure delight, and the only thing that could be criticised was that it was a little too slick. The original version, which I caught at the Segal Centre, had rawness and energy that this version did not quite match. But that is a small quibble. If you can get to this really hot show, y’all better get a ticket before they run out.

Centaur Theatre: May 8 – June 3, 2012

Box Office: 514-288-3161

J’ai demandé à 12 hommes de me recommander des livres importants pour eux. Mon but final est de réévaluer mon rapport avec eux et avec les hommes en général. Juste avant de rejoindre la fameuse manifestation du 26 avril, je rencontre Xavier, professeur d’histoire au secondaire et ami de longue date, pour parler du très puissant roman « Pour qui sonne le glas » d’Ernest Hemingway.

Robert Jordan est un professeur d’espagnol, un américain qui participe activement à la guerre civile d’Espagne en tant que dynamiteur pour les communistes. Sa mission spécifique est de faire exploser un pont. C’est un ordre précis, venant d’autorités supérieures, auquel il ne peut absolument pas déroger. Et comme c’est souvent le cas dans la vie, rien ne va comme prévu, malgré la détermination obsessive du révolutionnaire.

Xavier m’a recommandé ce livre avant le début du conflit étudiant: ma lecture d’un pays en guerre civile, aux affrontements violents, décrivait pour moi une réalité très éloignée. Je ne parlerai pas de printemps érable (je trouve le terme insultant pour les luttes populaires au Moyen-Orient), mais dans le contexte de la grève étudiante, il est certain que notre interprétation du livre était modifiée, influencée par les manifestations souvent réprimées dans la violence ainsi que le clivage net entre différentes factions idéologiques.

«Je n’ai pas connu la violence, on est plusieurs à ne pas avoir connu la violence dans notre société », explique-t-il. « De voir écrit comment ça pourrait s’installer, comment c’est possible que ça s’installe, jusqu’où l’humain peut aller, c’est fascinant, ce bout-là se lit tout seul », dit-il. Le passage dont il est question est celui où des communistes espagnols d’un petit village encerclent un camp fasciste. Ils exécutent violemment, cruellement et publiquement des voisins fascistes. Les dérives autoritaires d’un groupe certain de sa justification morale, ça provoque de tels abus.

Nous ne sommes pas rendus à jeter des jeunes grévistes en bas d’une falaise ou à monter une guérilla clandestine contre les forces policières. Pour qui sonne le glas est un outil précieux pour relativiser notre colère et détecter les abus, dans le but de ne jamais se rendre là. Je l’accorde, il n’y a pas grand parallèle à faire entre la grève étudiante et la guerre civile espagnole (tant mieux!) mais notre paix sociale en est évidemment affectée et la violence a fait son entrée de jeu officielle dans les rues.

Le livre est aussi un éloge surprenant du moment présent. Les quatre journées fatidiques du groupe guerrier se déroulent en quatre-cents pages denses et intenses. À plusieurs reprises, Robert Jordan constate que sa vie se limite au cadre de ces quatre journées-là. Rien d’autre ne compte. Seul le moment présent existe. Le moment présent, c’est l’amour passionnel de Maria, l’amitié complexe de Pilar et une mission explosive. Il n’y a rien d’autre.

Pour qui sonne le glas est un roman marquant sur les compromis tragiques de toute guerre. La force de la plume d’Hemingway confirme toutes les idées reçues sur la férocité de l’auteur misogyne qui était également boxeur. Jamais une mission n’aura semblé aussi importante que la destruction de ce maudit pont par un dynamiteur qui souhaite obéir à des ordres précis mais qui est confronté à l’amour, la trahison, la mort et le doute.

Originally posted in Baise-Livres.

Given his pacifist perspective, you might expect Noah Richler’s new book about Canadian military involvement in Afghanistan to be a rant. Or one of those “important” books that attract high-powered reviewers, so you can get by with reading reviews. Not so. What We Talk About When We Talk About War is an eloquent meditation on the nature of modern warfare, and one of the best books I’ve read about Canada in years – not the surprisingly colourful, forgotten history of, but a biting analysis of who we are in the twenty-first century, and why. Spinning off from the Raymond Carver story What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, … About War makes an elegant bridge from Richler’s justly acclaimed Literary Atlas of Canada (2006), which was based on his coast-to-coast road trip encounter with contemporary novels and novelists, in search of our national soul.

This time Richler promises “a consideration of the phrases and forms of story that Canada has used in order to talk itself into, through and out of the war in Afghanistan.” Culling through mounds of old newspapers, he gleefully cuts and pastes together an astonishing account of how the Harper government, spurred by the crisis of 9/11 and backed by a handful of sympathetic intellectuals and journalists, undertook a massive “recalibration of Canadian ideas about the importance of the military and its role in foreign policy” which allowed for a huge increase in military spending, the publically-stated purpose being to support American military goals. Astonishing not because he uncovered new facts (he didn’t), but because the synthesis and analysis of known facts is so deliciously provoking. Because it raises news and comment to a higher level, that of psychological, emotional, philosophical meaning.

In the space of five years, Canada’s international image was radically changed, with profound domestic implications. One small example, the Macdonald-Cartier Freeway became the Highway of Heroes, a gesture fraught with symbolism. The effort entailed a concerted reformulation of the Canadian personality, reviving old myths, putting others to bed. Richler argues the makeover didn’t stick in part because the chosen battleground for testing this new image was an unwinnable war. Forced to retreat, Harper and the military were forced to revive the lost legacy of peacekeeping; renaming what the military was doing over there made slipping away publically defensible.

This book with a long title has a narrow issue focus – there is no discussion of the extent to which military expenditure was inspired by domestic, vote-getting motivations, providing the government with opportunities to spend millions of dollars in parts of the country where Conservative support needed shoring up; no reference to Harper’s wider learning curve in the realm of foreign policy, for example, his public appreciation for the Dali Lama and disdain for China’s internal politics, followed by a parallel reversal over the same time period, as he woke up to the reality of the international economy. We’re left with the impression that, in spite of his best efforts, Harper has been drawn back into the deep middle road (or rut) of Canadian values where peacekeeping is the thing to do. This makes for a neat story arc, but it feels premature; surely Harper’s attention has just gone elsewhere. The changes he wrought – or tapped into – will not soon disappear.

Arguably more interesting is the ‘big idea’ Richler develops using war (like novels in his last book) as material. Built slowly and carefully to a crescendo, his idea both nails and transcends its subject masterfully, and it is a literary one: that war and war mongering call for an epic form of thinking, whereas peace and peace-keeping require a taste for the novel. Epic literature is heroic, favouring the stark contrast of light and darkness, friends and enemies, winners and losers; the novel seeks to understand, illuminate complexity and reconcile or at least bring about a truce in the natural clash of opposites. These two forms of thinking obey quite different laws and uphold different values.

Dipping into the Iliad, he frames the central paradox of pacifism in mythological terms: as Achilles’ mother told him, a young guy has two choices: live a long, unremarkable life of peace, or a short military one promising everlasting glory. War is hell, a terrible waste of life and money. But it is also exciting, rousing, energizing, especially in a time of uncertainty, which is to say pretty well all of the time.  Since the first recorded skirmish, war has offered generations of youths without prospects a quick route to self-definition and a glamorous routine. War has also presented generations of writers with a subject worthy of their deepest outrage, finest style. An ancient irony, tackling an ideology he passionately opposes has brought out Noah Richler’s inner warrior, inspired his best writing yet.

So we are living in epic times. By identifying a sea change in the Canadian political psyche, Noah Richler identifies the spirit of our times, opens an important discussion. His big idea explains, for example, why the bottom has dropped out of literary fiction, why all people seem interested in reading in droves is crime fiction, Swedish polars and, well, books like What We Talk About When We Talk About War. Books that are the intellectual equivalent of a good night’s sleep, that leave you feeling smarter, ready to cope with the grind of national news, and actually interested in Canada and the culture wars that lie ahead.

Don’t leave this one to the critics. Buy the book, sink back, get mad and enjoy.

Noah Richler will appear at Paragraphe Books and Breakfast this Sunday, May 13, with Kim Thuy, Taras Grescoe and Jeff Rubin, 10 am at Le Centre Sheraton, 1201 Boul. René-Lévesque West. Tickets are $32 plus tax. Call 514-845-5811.

Check out Noah Richler’s columns for The Rover, The Writing Life, here.

http://youtu.be/5yUi_pMGI6k

Detroit, Michigan, sometimes looks like the surface of the moon. The American dream as envisioned by the US ‘Big Three’ automotive companies (GM, Ford, and Chrysler) back in the 1940-50s gave birth to a vast middle class. They have since done everything in their power, however, to erode it.

Detropia, a 2012 documentary film by Academy award-nominated duo Rachel Gray and Heidi Ewing (Jesus Camp, 12th & Delaware, Boys of Baraka), takes a look at contemporary life in the city of Detroit. From the local café barista-turned-blogger to the artist couple who purchased a loft at a rock-bottom price, new and old Detroiters share their stories in what was once the fastest growing city in the U.S. Today, Detroit is the country’s fastest shrinking city.

Detroit blogger Crystal Starr roams old abandoned buildings in-and-around downtown Detroit, taking photographs and making videos of their stylish design and interior. Inside an old luxury hotel she points out walls ripped to shreds by the city’s newest class of citizens, who gut old buildings and homes of their copper wiring to sell to a scrap metal yard.

If this doesn’t give you a sense of the type of urban decay seen in Detroit, one scene in the film follows a group of unemployed men illegally tearing down the remains of a building left standing. They use their vehicles to pull down the remains of the structure, as shown in Detropia’s trailer.

Down the road from one GM plant still in operation, which now produces hybrid vehicles as a stipulation of the US government financial bail-out package in 2009, an affable blues bar owner recounts the good old days when business was booming and how he hopes GM’s production of the new hybrid Chevrolet Volt will bring life back to this economically-depressed area of the city.

The bar owner actually attends the International Auto Show in Detroit and compares GM’s new hybrids to a Chinese manufactured car, which the GM representative counters as being like “apples and oranges.” The bar owner isn’t convinced and finds that out the Chinese version, backed by American philanthropist-investor Warren Buffet, gets much better mileage than the GM vehicle.

Ironic considering this is exactly how GM once compared itself to Honda.

Detropia is a brief glimpse into the current crisis facing American cities. Manufacturing jobs continue to leave Detroit, despite the highly-touted “Buy American” campaign, due to the city’s urban blight and dwindling population. Filmmakers Ewing and Grady say the film is meant to start a dialogue on the future of cities in America. Detroit needs immediate attention.

Detropia opened at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema in Toronto, Saturday, May 5.

A comedy about a couple who are married but not to each other and agree to meet every year on the same date at a motel, Same Time Next Year premiered in 1975. It’s a terrific play for summer stock theatre because it has only one set and two actors, but also very dated – just the kind of shmaltzy old time sentimental pap that seems to target the Segal’s silverback audience. I thought that when I heard the pre-show music, and I was right.

The Segal production also has R.H Thompson, who could probably make the phone book palatable, and Michelle Giroux who is a fantastic Doris. The direction was not outstanding and the first act had some of us dreading we would have to sit through every minute of the not spectacularly interesting lives of George, the CPA/piano player, and Doris, the housewife/hip student and entrepreneur.

You know a play has problems when the transitions are terrific yet a number of your fellow audience members choose to snooze through long stretches of act one. The transitions were meant to wake them up; the music and newsreel-like projections and videos were loud and fantastic. The action starts in 1951 then moves to 1956 1961 1965 1970 1975. There is something beyond nostalgia in the projections of the news of the day in those years rolled against the astonishing music of those eras.

Some scenes really did not work. The real-time viewing of photos of offspring brought yawns all around. However, one does marvel at how well R. H. Thompson looks as he plays a much younger man. At one time, Doris asks her paramour whether her hair is too blond, and of course it is brown, but the audience is too sleepy to notice. The costumes were delightful and the set done with great mission style furniture is too.

Which brings me to the obvious question: why does a well-endowed theatre like the Segal bring in a road show from Ontario? Yes Bernard Slade is officially a Canadian playwright, but surely we did not need another “warmity” (a play that is neither comedy nor tragedy, but leaves you feeling warm all over) in May.

Then there are the many Montreal women directors who could have done something daring interesting and well, theatrical. For what it’s worth, the 1978 filmed version of Same Time Next Year can be rented on DVD or Netflix. Unfortunately, both the film and this production maintain the feeling of the many sitcoms for which Mr. Slade is famous.

At the Segal Centre to May 20th: Segalcentre.org / 514 739 7944

Michael Ondaatje’s latest novel, The Cat’s Table, floats in a sea of magic, curiosity and the fantasy of youth. Ondaatje animates life aboard the Oronsay, a six-hundred berth passenger ship en route from Sri Lanka to England in the 1950s. The twenty-one day journey is seen through the eyes of an eleven year-old boy nicknamed Mynah. Terminating with him meeting his mother in England and attending school, Mynah is essentially on his own under the scantest of supervision.

Mynah’s place in the ship’s dining room is with strangers – two children his age, Cassius and Ramadhin, and the remainder adults. ‘“We seem to be at the cat’s table,” the woman called Miss Lasqueti says. “We’re in the least privileged place.”’

Mynah, Cassius and Ramadhin quickly become friends. “By the end of our first day, we discovered we could become curious together.”

Shifts in narrative chronology, from Mynah on the ship to him looking back as a teenager or adult, explore the formative experiences that imprint on him from their 21 days together, “as boys on that journey to England, looking out on a sea that seemed to contain nothing, we used to imagine complex plots and stories for ourselves.”

The novel flirts with the surreal. At one point the children discover a garden, ubiquitous in magical novels, in which “Mr. Daniels was transporting to Europe.”

Driven by their inquisitiveness, “We were learning about adults simply by being in their midst. We felt patterns emerging.” They notice a passenger “might have an interesting reason for their journey, even if it was unspoken or, so far, undiscovered.” They of course try to investigate everyone.

It’s perhaps trivial to note that the vocabulary and phrasing is constantly adjusting to the contents of a scene – it does in all writing. But Ondaatje’s skill for this is exemplary; when the nature of a scene changes the language follows with subtle and seamless referencing which at no point feels contrived. This conjuring and quality of perception gives the novel a superb and engaging intimacy.

The crown of Ondaatje’s imagery, which is too long to quote, comes when, for fun, Ramadhin ties Cassius and Mynah to the deck of the ship during a storm. “The gale hit and pulled the air out of our mouths.” Toward the end of this ordeal as each wave makes a wash that covers them Mynah describes, “There was only noise. We could not tell if we were screaming or only trying to.”

The Cat’s Table contains much more humour that most of Ondaatje’s novels, with some subtle observations. “An outdoor concert was given one night on the Promenade Deck, with the sound of the sea filling our ears. It was classical music, something Cassius, Ramadhin, and I had never heard about, and because the three of us had grabbed seats in the front row, we were not able to get up and leave, unless we pretended to be overcome by illness. I was not really listening, trying instead to invent a dramatic walk away from my seat while clutching my stomach.”

In contrast to the diligently-researched history and politics of his previous novels, The Cat’s Table is a lighter introduction to the imagination of Ondaatje. It has a simpler foundation that keeps it free and dreamlike – like the mind of a child. Ondaatje tells a seductive and captivating story which reveals itself with his characteristic effortless and dexterous rapid scene transitions. The Cat’s Table is a story of youth, curiosity and being in awe of the world. Mynah notes at one port of call in Aden, “The professions along this promontory belonged to the sea, and the merchants whose laughter and bartering surrounded us were the owners of the world.”

Martyn Bryant is a writer based in Montreal. (martynbryant.wordpress.com)

Horse Feathers frontman Justin Ringle spoke to Rover over the phone from his front porch in Portland, Oregon where he was “trying to soak in the last bit of home” before heading out on tour for the indie-folk five-piece’s latest album, Cynic’s New Year, which the band brought to Montreal this past week.

What got you into music?

I grew up in Idaho, which wasn’t necessarily a thriving cultural center, so I guess in a lot of ways it was to pass the time.

Back in Idaho, you were more into playing in indie rock bands. Why did you make the make the change to acoustic?

I played in rock band after rock band since I was, like, 15, and then when I was in my early 20s, I grew tired of how loud it all was and I got more interested in where the song was in that whole mess of stuff. I’d moved to Portland and pretty much had an acoustic guitar, an apartment and a lot of time.

The new album is titled Cynic’s New Year. Can you tell us about the title?

I felt like the whole last year was kind of a little bit rough and tumble – it had pretty big ups and downs… I kind of looked at it as being a cautionary tale. A “cynic’s new year” is pretty much where every day is no different from the last one.

How are the songs written? Do you come up with an idea and then work with the rest of the band?

I’m usually going for a specific idea or vision of how the ultimate sound is going to sound with everybody else, but I always like to give enough room for individual voices in terms of instrumentation [in order] to have space to complete it. I’m a songwriter, on one hand, and the other hand a band leader/producer.

Loneliness, alienation and the pressures of day-to-day life are often present in your songs. Why do you choose to write about those subjects?

It ends up kind of being like an exorcism. I’d rather express myself musically about the things that bother me and have something good come from it then live with those problems all the time.

The single Foot against the Country is about a workingman’s sorrow. Where did the inspiration for those lyrics come from?

[Sighs] You’re gonna do that to me… I come from a supremely middle-class town, my dad worked in a paper mill and my mom’s a nurse, and whenever I go back home it’s so evident the type of strife that’s happening right now.

What distinguishes the album for you? How is Cynic different from your previous albums?

Music has always been tied to my life, and I can see each one of those [albums] as the progression of growing up. The biggest distinction I’d see with the newest record is how I feel like I’m all grown up now… all the other ones were like getting to the place I’m in
now.

For more info about Horse Feathers, and to listen to or purchase Cynic’s New Year, please visit http://www.killrockstars.com/artists/horse-feathers

When I first came to Montreal, I was impressed with its charm and beauty. Our neighbourhood was replete with immigrants of all kinds – Italians, Greeks, Portuguese, Asian as well as Orthodox Jews and Hasidim. It was a beautiful place to raise a family. People were friendly and kind. My husband’s parents came to Montreal with the first wave of immigrants after the war, over 65 years ago. We recognized the city as being a malchus shel chesed, which translates from Hebrew to “A government of kindness.”  The laws were fair, people were receptive, and we could raise our family within the traditions that our parents were able to salvage after those bitter war years.

While Montreal evolved with its waves of immigrants into a cosmopolitan centre, there followed tremendous transformation within the Quebec social framework. My husband remembers how on Sundays the streets of Outremont were flooded with families in their Sunday best on their way to church services. The dress codes were more stringent and parallels between our communities were easier to make. We shared mutual respect based on common religious understanding. Later, as more and more taboos melted away, the fabric of society diversified.

Today, the Plateau and Outremont have become an enclave for arts and culture. The edifices remain, monuments to where the masses used to flock. But now technology is the forum in which people connect. Unfortunately, however, it is all too often knotted with tangled threads, leaving us alone to navigate through it. In the name of “openness,” people are now able to use the Internet and media to vomit their angst, prejudices, and uninformed conclusions. They point their fingers, accuse and blame, or just vent. It is very difficult at such times to maintain an intellectual equilibrium while rummaging through the garbage of venom. Yet I still believe that the best in humanity prevails.

The most fundamental need of a person is to share their lives with other people. Every society is privy to the best and the worst of people. Every person, regardless of persuasion, colour, race or creed has the capacity for the best and for the worst within themselves. The deciding variable is the ego. When we measure each other against the backdrop of our egos, our experiences, prejudices, and limited knowledge, the result is often misconstrued conclusions.

I was not privy to the various articles on the websites and in the media recently. I choose not to read the comments and websites that attack those things that I hold dear, though I have heard second-hand about them. I prefer not to be drawn into belligerent argumentation. I choose to believe in the best in people, and avoid the gut stewing that leads to nowhere. What I write now is purely my own opinion. I do not profess to represent any common Hassidic viewpoint. (I do not dare. When twenty Hasidim get together there are at least forty opinions.)

But I want to express my thanks and appreciation to those of you who look deeper and can think outside the box. I thank those of you who look at the situation with understanding. Many of you have Hasidic neighbours, for example, who have large families. Kids make a lot of noise and often a mess, and we may have encroached upon your peace and quiet. But I can attest on behalf of the Hasidim, that if and when our Outremont neighbours suffer inconvenience when we perform traditional ceremonies, or from any aspect of our lifestyles, it is certainly with no malice intended. The negativity that has built up is from grievances that have not been properly addressed.

As I said, every person has the potential for the best and for the worst, Hasidim included. I understand and respect that our neighbours have needs, and we would like to accommodate your needs, hopefully within a framework of positive understanding and mutual discussion, void of ugly back and forth. And I appreciate your attempts at dialogue so that you can understand our needs.

I would like to address the fact that Hasidim appear to be closed and uncommunicative. It may give the impression that we isolate ourselves from society because we are elitist. As a community, even amongst ourselves, we are extremely discreet about our personal lives, and it is considered honourable to be so. What goes on in our families, in our homes, is very private. Home is our haven, our friendly territory where we feel the safest. That is why it is extremely uncomfortable to be put under a microscope and read about what kind of people we purportedly are by lopsided journalists. In the interest of juicing up a story they make priorities out of insignificancies and play down what is important. If the implications would not be so sad, it would be laughable.

A few years ago, the door to my basement was spray painted with swastikas and derogatory messages about Jews. To say I was unimpressed is an understatement. I did not take it personally, nor did I attribute this scrawl to “kids being kids.” I took it in stride, as a fact of life but not necessarily a reflection of the environment in which I live. However, I did repaint the door. Sure enough a week later — I guess the guy or gal had plenty of paint — the messages were back in full glory, new and improved. The least vindictive among them was the dollar sign with a message indicating that Jews have money. This time I did not bother to paint it over.

“May this message go to G-d’s ear,” I thought as I read it out loud. “I could use some dollars right now.” I ignored the tainted door and tried to view the black graffiti against the grey as a Picasso. After all, Picasso also drew crooked.

Some weeks later, a stranger rang my bell. She told me she represented an organization committed to doing good (I wish I could remember the name of the organization). She asked if she could paint over my door. One of the things she and her friends were doing was going around painting over hate slurs. She was neither Hasidic nor Jewish. The graffiti and its mean message bothered her more than it bothered me. This was very refreshing. If she reads this I hope she can leave a message so I can thank her again.

Yes, we need some constructive talking between ourselves because there are issues that must be resolved. I trust that both the Hasidim and our good Outremont and Mile End neighbours will approach this discussion not with finger pointing but with openness. I hope we can really listen to each other and put our egos aside, helping us come to decisions with mutual give and take where possible and where necessary. I believe we can enhance our communities and confirm what I truly believe, that in my beloved neighbourhood of Outremont-Mile End, the best of mankind prevails.

Malka Zipora is the author of Rather Laugh Than Cry (Véhicule Press). The name is a pseudonym.

The Friends of Hutchison, the very first community group comprised of Hasidim and non-Hasidim members, are hosting a friendly community meeting:

Sunday, May 6th at the Mile End Library (5434 ave du Parc), 1pm to 4pm. All are invited.

For more information go to the Facebook page or email ruehutchison@hotmail.com.

Multi-instrumentalist, musical prodigy, guitarist for Canadian indie rock band The Dears and fellow Montrealer Patrick Krief took some to discuss his latest solo venture, Hundred Thousand Pieces, with The Rover on the eve of its release, April 17.

Your album was released today. How were the months leading up to this day?

Pretty chaotic, but it’s good to be busy… Now we wait and see. It doesn’t belong to me anymore.

You did most of the work on the album yourself, including the production. Has it been more stressful to make something so personal for the public to judge than it was with a band?

It’s one of those things that’s more rewarding when it works and it’s a lot more work involved… This is a direct line of communication between me and the listener.

Is there an underlying theme on the album?

There’s a lot of catching on to reality in the music – the whole idea of fitting in when you get to a certain age and isolation.

What’s going on with you and The Dears?

We’re trailing off the end of a mountain now. We’re starting to discuss the possibility of making another record or touring again.

Did you learn anything while you were in a band with them?

Yeah, I learned a lot about arrangements and how to tour properly. A lot of trial and error that we went through on tour has come in handy for me. It’s been an endless amount of lessons.

Do you have a personal favourite track on the album?

They’re moving around on me all the time… I love all the songs, they’re really personal so they all bring something else out of me. It’s really the album that I’ve been able to tolerate the most, which is amazing because sometimes I can’t even listen to my own records.

So this one you’re really proud of. There’s nothing you would change if you could?

[Pauses] No. I would not change a single thing… It’s totally weird, I’ve never had that before.

As a multi-instrumentalist, which instrument did you begin with?

Guitar. I had a fascination with it because my uncle was a guitar player. I started fooling around when I was two or three, but not in a serious way until I was ten and I got my own guitar.

When you did you start to write your own songs?

As soon as I was strumming a guitar, I was trying to come up with my own shit… The idea of getting lessons was completely out of the question and so I wasn’t being taught anything, I was just doing my own thing. The motivation was to write songs, not play other people’s music.

Did you always want to be a musician?

In my 20s I started coming up with alternate realities because I thought it would be more realistic, but I realized that my only reality is that I’m a musician. Anything else would just make me miserable.

What’s your favourite thing about living in Montreal?

I appreciate the standard of living. I think it’s pretty good bang for your buck here… There’s definitely something going on in the city in terms of energy.

Nearly four hundred eager spectators gathered on April 30^th for the second screening of The Flood (Mabul), acclaimed picture by director Guy Nattiv, part of Israel Film Festival’s 8^th consecutive year. The film—about a family leading parallel lives where 13 year old Yoni struggles with his lack of growth, his autistic brother’s presence, and being bullied at school—was emotional for many.

After the screening, the director, whose award record is as extensive as a grocery list, came to the front. In a low voice he said, “I hope you enjoyed it.” The response was an enthusiastic and loud clapping. The picturesque production filmed in Israel’s northern HaBonim region inspired the viewers to engage in a spirited discussion. Nattiv charmed us all during the twenty minute we had before the AMC closed and he was spirited away. He flew out the next morning for Tel Aviv, but fortunately an accommodating publicist arranged for the following interview.

Tell me what inspires and motivates you?

As a director, I love telling stories particularly those that I feel connected to and touch me. Music is a big inspiration as well, I love music with soul—classical, Israeli, old music—but with a deeper meaning, a music that tells a story. I am very emotional; therefore what inspires and motivates me is closely linked to how I emotionally I react to it.

Your film Strangers (2007) is about an Israeli man who coincidently meets a Palestinian girl in Berlin during the soccer world cup finals. They are drawn into a 3-day affair — until Rana abruptly leaves for Paris because Israel invaded Lebanon. The film is a kind of Middle Eastern Romeo & Juliet in Germany. What inspired that film?

It almost happened by accident. We took two great actors, a camera and filmed for several days hoping the characters would fall in love in real life. With hardly any scripts, it was practically all improvised. The actors ended up falling in love and the movie saw its day. I strongly believe in the power of improvisation. The Flood (Mabul in Hebrew) was 20% improvised too.

I felt very emotionally engaged by The Flood. What do you want to transmit to your viewers?

The movie portrays the story of a family. Autism is not the central theme. I wanted to get away from Rain Man, not turn it into a cliché. I researched autism thoroughly for almost a year having direct observation sessions. I wanted Tomer’s character to be as believable as possible.

The two main messages are the importance of communication at every level –within the family in this case—and also the significance of accepting those who are different.

What is the connection between the title The Flood and the meaning of the film.

In the film, we see Yoni rehearsing his part for Bar Mitzvah, which happens to be the account on Noah and the flood. But the deeper analogy lies in the fact that Tomer who in his autistic condition is paralleled to the ‘righteous’ man who ironically does not communicate but who’s arrival draws the family closer together forcing them to regain the lost communication bond.

The lack of physical growth in boys as Bar Mitzvah approaches, along with the pressures related to that event, feel to me like a recurrent topic in Israeli films. It made me think of Nir Bergman’s Intimate Grammar. Tell me about the dilemmas of Israeli boys and their Bar Mitzvahs.

Well, although it may seem a Jewish particularity, Bar Mitzvah represents for boys the transition of growing up, which in fact is universal. The awkwardness, the body’s physical changes, instances of bullying are what most young ones anywhere in the world can relate to. In Israel the two occurrences that have a deep impact on young boys are Bar Mitzvah (at age 13) and entry into the army (at age 18).

How much of Yoni’s character is taken from personal experience?

Quite a lot. I was Yoni growing up. It was rough for me, my voice was not changing, I wasn’t getting taller, and I was bullied in school. I even tried screaming my lungs out like Yoni and drank body building shakes hoping it will get me growing faster. I wanted to show my truth but at the same time present it in a way that others can relate to.

What is your greatest satisfaction related to The Flood?

Seeing people leave the theater in tears, I feel I’ve succeeded in moving the audiences. It’s rewarding to have made a movie I would want to see many years later and even leave as a legacy to my children.

What were the challenges connected to this film?

My main concern was to find a suitable child actor for Yoni’s character that could perform naturally. Another fear was not to fall into a cliché with the autistic character, to make it as credible as possible.

Tell me about an achievement that particularly fills you with pride. Which award has a special meaning to you and why?

I’m so proud that my voice finally changed and I turned into a man! I think I possess the capacity to make my vision happen, I have the drive and leadership to accomplish what I envision. I am particularly proud of winning the Crystal Bear for Best Short Film, as well as winner of the Special Mention for The Flood at the Berlin International Film Festival. I personally like the Berlin International Film Festival and Sundance Film Festival, they both are great festivals.

Tell me about your future production, Son of God.

It’s a road movie, like a sideways story. A 78-year-old father and son—Chasidic rapper—travel together to Poland. Many things take place on their journey, teaching them lessons and testing the solidity of their relationship. My grandfather is a holocaust survivor so I wanted to honour his story. A very touching moment was when, on my grandfather’s wish, my whole family and I travelled back to Poland. He stood there with his children and grandchildren and said, “This is my revenge, they are my revenge.” It was a deeply emotional moment for us.

What do you think of Montreal?

It is my favorite city, feels to me like a mixture of Paris and New York. It is my seventh time here. Montreal is culturally rich and full of beautiful people.

For more information on Guy Nattiv’s films and awards visit www.guynattiv.net. If you missed The Flood screenings during the Israel Film Festival, the film will be shown as part of the AMC Forum’s upcoming regular program starting from May 4^th. Details on: www.cinemaclock.com/movies/que/Montreal/48430/The_Flood.html.

Style triumphs over substance in The Heretics of Bohemia, the newest play from Scapegoat Carnivale Productions. A zany extravaganza involving a cast of thousands (many of them are puppets), Heretics overflows with shtick, witty banter and delightful theatricality. But its narrative is far too weak to support even its brief seventy-five minute running time. One can easily sit back and enjoy the ride – just don’t expect to understand what any of it was about when you’re done.

The play, written by Joseph Schragge, opens in the mythical land of Bohemia, a place where puppet and human live side by side. The tyranny of the human King (Michel Perron) has put the land into disarray and his various subjects have fled to the woods to stage a rebellion. Others soon follow including humans Equine and Pillet (Andreas Apergis and Felicia Schulman), puppets Arlo and Pierrick (Dan Jeannotte and Morgan Nerenberg) and, in a clever twist, the King himself – after seeing a vision of his own execution, he promptly exiles himself.

Julie Boubonnais’ set is playful and the tone of the night is continually underscored by the lively music from John Dodge and David Oppenheim  Director Alison Darcy keeps things moving at lighting speed and the cast is a Who’s Who of Montreal’s finest. The ensemble, some of whom had little experience in puppetry when they joined the cast, are clearly having the time of their lives and their enthusiasm is so infectious that it’s tempting to forget (or forgive) that the script itself doesn’t really make a lot of sense.

There are shades of Shakespeare in this convoluted story – the Tempest, As You Like It, Midsummer Night’s Dream, take your pick – but the disparate storylines never really add up to much. The King is the closest thing we ever get to a central character for no one else is on stage long enough to earn our sympathies; he’s also the only one whose motivations are clearly known. Many scenes fly by with little purpose. Equine and Pillet fall in love with a non-credible speed that would make even a musical comedy writer blush and it’s late in the day when the plot finally kicks in – something about a ritual and a faceless thing called a Pfingstl.

But you may not care about any of this. The production is a visual gem, beginning with the glorious hand-crafted puppets designed by Zach Fraser. These aren’t muppets or marionettes: many of the inventive puppets are integrated into the puppeteers themselves. Arlo, for instance, has Dan Jeannotte’s legs; the wild King of Moravia (Paul Van Dyck) has a puppet body and a human head. There’s a glorious theatricality to this and allows the production to marry the fantasy of the puppet world with the physicality and creativity of the actor.

For some reason, none of the actors are in a puppeteer’s usual black attire, which at times threatens to distract us from the puppets. When more traditional puppets were used, no attempt was made to hide the puppeteer’s presence. This caused a few problems: Dan Jeannotte, of Uncalled For fame, is such a wildly expressive performer that when he played the maniacal wizard Grimoire, he himself instantly became the most interesting thing on stage.

My companion enjoyed the ride immensely and I overheard a young man of twelve tell his mother that “this was the best thing” he had ever seen. The show definitely has its own quirky appeal and is stuffed so full of enthusiasm and talent that it’s worth checking out; whatever you think of the script, Heretics of Bohemia remains one of the most creative theatrical experiences you’ll probably get all year.

The Heretics of Bohemia by Joseph Schragge runs at the Segal Centre’s Studio Space until May 19^th. For tickets visit www.segalcentre.org or call 514.739.7944.

PHOTO: Tristan Brand

Pinocchio is one of my favourite stories and, according to my Italian speaking friend, it is a verb in that country which means you are fibbing and comes with an equally adorable gesture which starts at the nose and then moves away from the face.

The story is about an elderly wood carver who receives a magic piece of wood from his pal and carves this into the mischievous trouble-seeking little puppet. Dean Patrick Fleming is a veteran director who really does know how to create magic onstage and his kabuki-like shark interiors and terrific timing show a rare and well developed skill.

The script was not only enchanting for children, who whooped and yelled as the hero made one bad decision after another, but there were enough adult lines like ”You really can make money in the theatre,” to keep the grown up audience in stitches.

Mellie Ng was a fabulous Pinocchio and played him with a magical consistency. Alain Goulem was really delightful and heartbreakingly poignant in his portrayal of Giuseppe. His other personae were delivered with great energy and panache. Amanda Kellok was delightful addition to the cast and her “cat” was a perfect balance of whining and obstinacy. Antoine Yared delighted as the fox and managed a moment of sheer magic with his mini puppet show.

The itty bitty puppets were a bit tawdry and not well manipulated and although they were just used as segues in the narrative they were not up to the rest of the production. In terms of the narrative, the final appearance of the fox, brilliantly embodied by Antoine Yared, was bit unclear, and that loose end never really got tied up. I also thought that the puppet troupe and their interaction with the hero were terrific, and merited a bigger space in the story.

Ana Cappelluto delivered a really simple and lovely set, and it worked like a giant puzzle to serve the multiple locations and scenes. The lighting by Michel Charbonneau was equally up to the challenge. Cathia Pagotto costumes were clever and gave the animals a punk-like appearance which suited and amused. The issue of the burnt feet and the final reveal were also well designed.

Harry Standjofski’s script was a terrific adaptation of a great story and, as one  has come to expect, Geordie has another hit.

SAT MAY 5 @ 1pm & 3pm / SUN MAY 6 @ 1pm & 3pm

Centaur Theatre. (514) 845-9810 / 453 Saint-François-Xavier Rue  Montreal.