Béatrice has circulated (widely) a “want ad” poster. Now she waits up in her tower for the perfect man to arrive. John answers the call and using simple, unsophisticated language, this enterprising young man stirs emotions in Béatrice almost before she is aware of his effect. Through John’s character, Fréchette masterfully elicits in her audience all the emotions that Béatrice yearns to experience. But what then? A cross between Greek myth and fairytale, John and Béatrice asks the eternal questions of male and female archetypes in their relation to one another. Will the protected female open herself to experience the release and freedom of love? Will the macho male find the grit to become vulnerable enough to gain love’s lasting, inner rewards?

The two-hander features Tania Kontoyanni and Frank Schorpion, two Canadian actors who successfully work in both official languages. Director, Guy Sprung, was drawn to the blend of myth and humour that Fréchette uses to explore the tenets of love in this piece. “Fréchette is one of our major playwrights and it’s time Anglophone Québec gets to enjoy her sublime writing. Working with bilingual actors who bring a depth of insight from having read both the French and English scripts enriches the whole process.”

Fréchette had her own demons to contend with when she wrote this play ten years ago. “The monsters that lived in me at the time, incarnated in this woman, arrogant and controlling, and in this man, the calculator, enclosed in himself, make me want to run and hide today.” The two characters personify the duality of love. “Béatrice seeks love sublime, transcendent, love suspended in an apartment between sky and ground. The love of which young girls dream, of which I still perhaps dreamed, secretly, writing this funny duet. And then there is the love that John runs from, choking love, threatening, love that takes you to seventh heaven all the better to let you crash to the floor, love which shakes your will and your identity, misleading love that never completely tells the truth. Love that the boys fear, the love-prison that I still feared, undoubtedly, at the time of writing this funny duel.”

The set is designed by NTS graduate and alumnus of l’École Nationale d’Art Appliquées et des Métiers d’Art, Perrine Biette, with costumes by Ariane Genet, also a NTS graduate, lighting by Eric Mongerson and his assistant, Audrey-Anne Bouchard, with sound by one of Montréal’s busiest sound designers, Troy Slocum. Tom Fennario captains the video contributions to this production, (he last worked with Inifnithéâtre on Gas, projecting horrific scenes of the Iraq war onto the walls of the Bain) with stage management by Sarah-Marie Langlois.

Of special interest to note is that the same set for Jean and Béatrice will be used for the subsequent Infinithéâtre offering, Plucked, Hammered and Strung, to run concurrently at the Bain the last two weekends in October. It is the quirky semi-autobiographical cabaret of Seventeen Anonymous Women playwright, Carolyn Guillet. Information about that play will be circulated presently in a separate release.

Tues. to Sat. 8 pm
Sunday 2 pm
Monday DARK

Bain St-Michel
5300, rue St-Dominique
(Corner McGuire)
(514) 987 – 1774 ext. 104
box-office at infinitheatre.com
Regular: $20
Seniors/Students: $15
Groups (6 & more): $10

Carole Fréchette was born in Montréal and continues to live here. Her plays have been translated into 15 languages and have been staged all over the world, from Reykjavik and Paris to Tokyo and Moscow. In 1995 she won the Governor General’s Award for Les Quatres Morts de Marie, the Chalmers Award in 1998 for the same play, the Prix de la Francophonie de la SACD (France) and was the winner of the Siminovitch Prize both, in 2002. This year, Carole will spend a lot of time in France seeing new creations of four of her plays: La Petite pièce en haut de l’escalier (Théâtre du Rond-Point, Paris), Les Sept jours de Simon Labrosse (Théâtre de l’Opprimé, Paris), La Pose (La Comédie-Française, Paris) and Le Collier d’Hélène (Le Théâtre des Quarties d’Ivry, Parisian suburbs).

John Murrell is one of the most frequently produced Canadian playwrights. His work for the stage includes the Canadian classic, Waiting for the Parade; Memoir, which has been produced worldwide; Chalmers Best Canadian Play Award winners Farther West and The Faraway Nearby; and the libretto for the acclaimed new opera Filumena. As a translator, he has created frequently revived versions of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, The Seagull, and The Cherry Orchard; Ibsen’s The Doll House; Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac; and The Four Lives of Marie, Elisa’s Skin, and Seven Days in the Life of Simon Labrosse, all by Carole Fréchette.

Tania Kontoyanni graduated from the Conservatoire d’Art Dramatique de Montréal in 1994 and since then, has shared her talents between television, movies and theatre. Her theatre credits include, among others, La femme comme champ de bataille (Matéï Visniec) at Théâtre Prospero, Anna in the tropics (Nilo Cruz) at the Centaur Theatre, L’ardent désir des fleurs de cacao (Dominique Leduc) for Théâtre Momentum, L’Iliade by Alexis Martin at the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde, and The Taming of the Shrew (Shakespeare) for Théâtre LV2. Recently, Tania also took part in the latest Carole Fréchette play: La petite pièce en haut de l’escalier, directed by Lorraine Pintal at the TNM (April 2008). “I’m thrilled to visit once again Carole’s fascinating and unpredictable world!”.

Multi-talented actor, Frank Schorpion plays at ease in his mother tongue, English, as well as his second language, French. Frank has played many roles on the theatre stage, but it is on the television screen that he has left a definite mark, notably in the TV film The Boys of St-Vincent, directed by John N. Smith. He can also be seen in a number of television productions: Urban Angel, L'Or et le Papier, Omertà, Diva and Ces Enfants d'ailleurs. He played the role of Bernard in the TV series Les deux Frères, directed by Louis Choquette. His talent also shines in a good number of films, including the thrillers Slow Burn by Wayne Beach, Wicked Minds by Jason Hreno and more recently, Monica la Mitraille, by director Pierre Houle.