Last night I went to La Nouvelle Scene to see a reading of two plays. I don’t even know if this is the correct theater term in English. In French, it was a lecture. Essentially a lecture was a play being read out with the actual text in front of the readers but there are very few stage props or interactions on part of the actors other than the act of conversation.
These readings are the first crack at a new play which has been written. If the reading is a hit, theoretically a theater may opt to make it into an actual play (much like how the mythical Battle of the Bands works with the winning band getting a record deal).
The greatest part about this particular night of readings was the fact that our friend Marie-Claude had one the Concours Provincial D’Ecriture competition and I guess one of the prizes was the opportunity for having it read out to an audience (I think? I was a little fuzzy on the actual details of this. It had something to do with a Theater Company actually holding the rights to go forth with this particular play and if it gets a good response and the Theater company wishes to make it into a play, then they have the rights to it for a few years and then it goes back into the creator’s hands. It’s all a business out there people!)
Anyhow, back onto the story, we were all excited to see what the mind of Marie-Claude had to offer. I enjoy going to La Nouvelle Scene. The theater community is a small one (and perhaps the Francophone one is even smaller) so you get to see familiar faces in this community. We arrived with a few minutes to spare and managed to get a seat right in front of the stage due to Vero and Chantal saving us a seat up front.
The head of Theatre Catapulte came out and introduced the first piece which was written by Marie-Claude which was called Papillone (or something to do with a butterfly…I’m sure Vero will read this and correct me). It had four characters to the play…two women and two men who do not interact on the stage. The women are sharing a hospital room and the men are sharing a jail cell. The dialogue bounces back between these two scenes and you start to understand who these characters are and why they are in their respective rooms.
There was some good humour in the first half of the play but as it moves along, you find out a little more about the characters and realize there is a little more serious undertones to why they are in their respective places. At the point of writing about this play, I find it hard to think of either spoiling some key traits in the characters or not but at the same time, I realize that this isn’t a play you can actually go see (yet!). Ah what the heck….don’t read the next paragraph if you don’t want to be spoiled.
***spoiler***
The two women in the hospital room have cancer while the men sitting in the same jail cell have two different reasons altogether. Gerry gets in trouble with the law to get a room and food to eat during the winter months as he is a lumberjack and cannot get work year round. However, he finds out later that he is sharing his cell with a pedophile which (understandably) disgusts him. The entire play has them forming a friendship but then this revelation comes out and it’s quite moving. Near the end of the play, we all understand how some characters are connected and are shocked at the revelations.
***end spoiler, if you actually think that was a spoiler. I haven’t even brought up the numerous plot twists!***
My brain was operating at 100% capacity for this play. All cylinders firing. This play was in French and usually I catch about 80% of a play because sometimes my brain is starting to hurt after 1-2 hours of intensely listening to the language. But I knew I couldn’t miss one part of this. It paid off in spades.
I truly loved this play and I’m not saying it because it was written by a friend. It had me laughing, it had me on the edge of my seat…I really enjoyed the character development and I would say I felt connected to three out of four of them (the older woman with the cancer..not so much…). I wanted to see what would happen with them next. I thought this was an interesting feeling as there aren’t many characters in plays/movies that I would feel I connect with. I really enjoyed the actual performances these actors put into it. I really felt like they captured the essence of the characters (of course, there’s only one person out there that would actually know how the character is supposed to be!). The storyline was very moving and thought-provoking and kept me interested the entire time. I really feel that Marie-Claude has a gift that is to be shared with the world if she can write this kind of stuff…I let her know that also but I must admit it’s hard to find the words to compliment a person when you really mean it. Most of the time I’m sure it all sounds contrived…”Good job!” “I loved it!” “Way to go!”. But I really liked this play. Bravo Marie-Claude!
After the break, I found out that Jean-Francois would be reading in the next reading so I was excited to see him in action. Unfortunately for me, my brain had reached its maximum operating capacity and shut down. I found the play hard to follow and I couldn’t tell if it was the subject matter or not. Either way, I ended up staring at this one shadow on the wall when one of the actor’s talked and Vero and I had a fit of laughter because the shadow made him look like Gollum on the search for the ring. Ah…fun times. The play was actually written by someone from Hearst (cannot remember the name) and had some pretty abstract parts in it, with dancing and musical rhythm beats coming and going. I felt kind of bad for not really paying attention but a reading is definitely different than a play, whereas if you don’t understand a word of the play, you can probably still be interested from what is actually taking place on stage. Jean-Francois was quite animated in his delivery of his reading which I enjoyed. I was actually disappointed that I didn’t pay much more attention as the head of Theatre Catapulte compared some of it to George Orwell’s 1984 which is definitely one of my favourite novels.
My only beef with La Nouvelle Scene is the fact that it’s on King Edward Street and the readings were taking part in the front of the building so you could feel and hear all the traffic going by. At one point a fire engine went by and they had to pause the reading. It’s an odd spot for the theatre and I think it would be nicer if it was out of the way somewhere.
I would hope that Marie-Claude’s play actually gets fleshed out and becomes the real thing some day. I suppose we’ll have to wait and see on that one. Either way, it was a fun night of Francophone theatre. The only other theatre date I have coming up is Vero’s play which I’ll be treating myself to a second helping of on Saturday night. They are all loving every moment of it and it is getting good reviews from all.