Theatre Review by Christina Manolescu</MARQUEE>
Treated to an evocative stage setting, we the silent audience become the ‘tolerated’ voyeur (along with an anonymous old curio-peeping Tom with binoculars on some vertiginous Parisian balcony.)
During a revolving 24 hours, we’re privy to a slice of the protagonists’ ‘united double’ life, as Adrienne and Ricky (Lina Roessler and Brett Watson) experience—and also orchestrate it. A couple of dark, disturbed characters they certainly portray, at least, characters embodying a dark present & past chronology...and they do so with courage and flair.
As we first encounter them, they are poised on the brink of some non-future, linked in unexpected ways and engaged on a nihilistic life-ride of thrills, pseudo thrills, concealed agendas and tormented histories being painfully dragged into the (virtual) light of day.
Where does such darkness originate? What motivates its exploration? Playwright Trevor Ferguson conceived the plot and dramatis personae a few years ago; for the leading actor, he had Watson in mind. Ferguson is the first to acknowledge the play to be ‘brutal…a difficult beast,’ which, but for the determination of everyone involved in its early production, might not have seen the light of day.
In the spring of 2006, the world premiere opened at Theatre 54 in New York City to critical acclaim. Two years later, Montreal director Guy Sprung, along with the original actors, has repatriated the dramatic performance back home to Montreal.
Of course, the play’s title begs the question: what has Zarathustra to do with it all?
Well, apart from the old horse-chestnut from the Nietzsche canon: ‘God is dead’ which creates its own sparks (as do the many lighting-swift quotes along the way), there is another more appealing notion, that of the ‘eternal recurrence,’ the optimistic suggestion that man gets a second chance, or even many second chances at self-mastery or self-overcoming in order to eventually transform into the ‘Übermensch’ (although not the fictive legendary superman) he is destined to be.
If this is Ferguson’s intent, the narrative may be prodding these two seemingly lost souls on the path to redemption, although probably not at all in any religious sense.
In any event, this sealed-at-the-hip symbiotic twosome, alternately loving, detesting, terrorizing and comforting one another, switching & swapping rôles of parent & child toward one another, are definitely launched on a cycle of perdition or salvation together.
Theatre Review by Christina Manolescu © 2008 Invisible Cities Network
ZARATHUSTRA SAID SOME THINGS, NO?
March 15 – 30, 2008
THÉÂTRE LA CHAPELLE
3700 St-Dominique
(514) 843 - 7738
billetterie@lachapelle.org
WRITTEN BY TREVOR FERGUSON
DIRECTED BY GUY SPRUNG
Featuring Lina Roessler & Brett Watson
- Set Design Katka Hubacek
- Costume Design Elli Bunton
- Lighting Design Mark Baehr
- Sound Design Troy Slocum
- Stage Manager Suzanne Crocker
- Asst. Stage Manager Natalie Gemmel
ZARATHUSTRA SAID SOME THINGS, NO?, INFINITHEATRE continues its successful association with Montréal novelist/playwright, Trevor Ferguson, in this intense and insightful examination of addiction and abuse. Adrienne and Ricky, a Canadian couple living in a seedy Paris hotel, have entered into a suicide pact, which they have, so far, failed to complete. Zarathustra paints a riveting vision of a lost generation overwhelmed by a tide of convoluted pathologies.
“...brilliance of the writing... Lina Roessler and Brett Watson are astonishingly powerful in these roles... nytheatre.com 2006”
“The play and these two performances are easily among the best you will see on the off-Broadway stage this year,” blogcritics.org 2006
Previews: March 15 & 16 (Special Preview Discount – ONLY $10)
Opening Night: March 18
Tues. – Sat.: 8:00 PM
Sunday Matinée: 2:00 PM
Weekday Matinées: Available for groups. Call Infinitheatre to reserve (514-987-1774 x104)
$15 Students, Seniors (65 & over) & Infinitheatre Members
$10 Groups (6 persons or more)
Trevor Ferguson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trevor_Ferguson) is very busy these days. He spent last summer on set every day as the consultant for the film version of his 1996 book, The Timekeeper, which was shot in Northern Québec . The film is currently in post-production but has already passed through the pre-screening process to be entered into the Cannes Film Festival. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1087872/.
Réal Chabot and Louis Bélanger, the film’s producer and director respectively, are no strangers to success with their previous hit, Gaz Bar Blues http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379298 winning numerous awards at the Montréal and Paris Film Fests as well as a couple of JUTRAs. Ferguson is also in the midst of writing the screenplay for his best-selling novel, City of Ice, which he wrote under the penname, John Farrow. That’s not all, however, as The Timekeeper’s creative team has already lined him up to write an original screenplay for a film to be called The River Burns. Unbelievably, Trevor is also developing a 13-week television spy series set in Ottawa’s diplomatic core in between teaching creative writing courses at Concordia University.