Theatre Review by Christina Manolescu</MARQUEE>
It’s a hard-hitting, unsentimental glimpse of family life, exposing the underbelly of one impoverished Québecois family. Yoked together against their will, Marie-Lou (Catherine Fitch), her husband Léopold (Alain Goulem), along with their burdensome family, are lost and floundering in a collective Dark Age. They embody the disenchantment, loss of faith, and daily exhaustion of a working class family trying minimally to survive.
To label any family dysfunctional suggests that there exists—somewhere ‘out there’—an ideal and idealized ‘functional’ family, in which no one ever rages, curses, plots and schemes, hates, betrays, explodes or implodes under the relentless stresses of life.
Over the years, playwright Tremblay has honed his own genius for demolishing that domestic mythology. Be prepared to be spellbound by what you witness, to wince, perhaps in recognition, at this staged display of vitriolic dynamics—bottled misery—in its pure concentrated ‘format familial.' It’s the relentless pastime of mutually tearing each other to pieces, the back-and-forth tribal harangues of a family, bonded by love/hate, in perpetual bondage to its love/hate.
To begin with, Brian Smith’s stage setting, on three levels, is a marvel. Nostalgic images appear on a ledge and projection screen to the upper left. Below is a cross-wise stage area, evoking both impoverished kitchen and candle-lit altar. Through its church-like windows appears a bleak beautiful rock-face, with its hint of tragedy to come. The drama is split into dual chronologies and two physical dimensions, with the ‘ground floor’ angled proscenium pre-empted by the reincarnated memories of two sisters, Manon and Carmen.
Because of the playwright’s mastery over the story’s dual structure, its coupling storylines rise, fall, and intersect like paths plotted on a graph. Along this bi-fold dramatic curve, explosive flashpoints continue to occur, provoked by the sisters’ conflicting memoirs of past events.
Carmen, played by Holly O’Brien, is shown as the total contrast to her sister Manon (Anthousa Harris). Not only are their recollections of childhood individually skewed in relation to their personality and character, but they also represent an opposing choice of will. Take your pick: either fashion a poisoned chalice out of your lifetime by clutching on to the bitter past (as Manon does) OR (like Carmen), freely choose to remould your ‘Self,’ along with your past, present and future, consciously ditching any irrelevant memories, like so much trash-baggage, along the way.
Carmen, a country music singer, in knee-high calfskins, stylish Stetson and miniskirt, is the ultimate party girl. Relaxed, confident and exuberantly sexy, she is a permanent foil and contrast to Manon, her sackcloth & ashes, crucifix-kissing sister, confined in long drab skirts and penitential gaze.
What is fascinating to watch is how these two opposing personalities and two theatrical worlds merge, clash, explode, then disengage from one another: the cleverness with which the dialogue and action intersect—sometimes ironically, always significantly—in this complex, cross-sectional view of family life, shaped by a master craftsman, and uncompromisingly true.
Tremblay’s non-judgmental empathy for the characters shows in the way he honours and validates them all, one by one. Each of them speaks with a persuasive and logical rationale for the way they perceive, conduct, and justify their lives. No absolute rights or wrongs, no definitive villains, victims or predators: just 4 disparate struggling souls, bound together/hacked apart from one another...for all time.
Catherine Fitch
Alain Goulem
Anthousa Harris
Holly O'Brien
Set & Costume Designer Brian Smith
Lighting Design: Luc Prairie
Assistant Director: Jonathan Seinan
Stage Manager: Merissa Tordjman
Apprentice Stage Manager: Katharine Childs
Carmen, a country singer returns home to convince Manon, her sister, to end years of mourning the death of their parents. Past and present intermingle as the two daughters struggle to reconcile their visions of the past, while the parents, Marie-Lou and Léopold, enact the events leading up to their meeting with powers beyond their control.
A tragedy, written in fierce dialogue, decrying loneliness, poverty, ignorance and fear of the unknown, it portrays a society at a crossroads, torn between apathetic self-pity and the lucidity that precedes a taking charge of one’s destiny, Marie Labrecque, Voir, September 5, 1996.