It is worth a visit to the Monument National on Boulevard St-Laurent just to experience its intimate cabaret-style theatre space, with wine bar, tucked away upstairs. Its stark dramatic ‘ambiance,’ with a flourish of drapes and hangings, calls to mind those legendary Berlin cabarets of the 20’s era. A tall square piano to the right of the stage is presided over by Ari Snyder, silver-haired performer and virtuoso accompanist; then—enter Gabrielle Maes, the multi-faceted, multi-talented focal point of the ‘spectacle.’
Gabrielle makes her entrance in the guise of a toothless, coarse-mouthed hag, exuding a fearful aspect of bitterness and malice, spewing black humour within a pool of gloom. It is this role that establishes the ‘centre of gravity’ of a unique and courageous piece of theatre. From this center-point issue the many ephemeral faces and voices of a forlorn and abandoned diva as she pulls aside the stage-curtain, allowing a transient glimpse into her life.
The dreamy innocent eight-year-old, raised in the squalor of poverty, who discovers that she has a voice; the timorous teenager at her first singing contest; the maturing performer bedazzled by a world she never believed she had the right to enter…and therefore continually having to reshape herself, shedding her many skins, slipping in and out of her myriad roles to rise to the circumstances that life created for her.
Gabrielle Maes, an accomplished actress, writer and classically trained opera singer, juggles these stage-roles and musical styles with astonishing ease: the dissembler, the mimic comedienne, the crone, the seductress, the antagonist and rebel, the schoolgirl ingénue. Having grown up in Europe and North America, she says that many of her stage impersonations are created from and inspired by people she has known, the street people, the eccentric, the mentally ill. During the performance, BEDRAGGLED, Gabrielle chooses to give this invisible anonymous woman in rags her moment on the stage, and also her voice.
“She has her say and the audience must listen. Humanity encompasses the outcasts,” declares the creator of this ensemble.
It is the seamless unity of one life enacted upon the stage, like a legendary near-death encounter that spins out a lifetime in a sequence of rapid ‘stills’ before our eyes. Meanwhile, the performance remains astonishing, dynamic, hilarious and tragic, devoid of self-pity or sentimentality. Countering its grimness, its morbidity, is the play’s hard-hitting humour, a harsh ribald wit that rejects the world’s pity for this derelict diva, sinking into the dregs she has spent her life trying to evade. It is a sobering, full-circular trajectory, seemingly without redemption, unless it be this brief ‘book of revelation’ backlit forever and ever by the evanescent glory days.
Gabrielle has brought her cabaret home from Paris where she performed with Les Voutes and as a soloist at the American Cathedral. In her career she has debuted pieces written specifically for her including works by the avant-garde French director Pierre Carniaux. While in Paris, Gabrielle wrote and performed a three-person cabaret, which she has adapted to this now-expanded version of Bedraggled. Gabrielle continues to sing as a soloist for leading orchestras as well as with ensembles throughout France and Canada. Ms Maes is a talent not to be missed.
Come and enjoy getting Bedraggled.
Four shows only
Opening Night: Friday, February 16, 8:00pmRun: Thursday, Feb. 22-Saturday, Feb. 24, 8:00pm
1182 St-Laurent Blvd.
Box office: (514) 871-2224
$15
http://www.monument-national.qc.ca