After skiing, Vero and I went to The Bay to spy some discounted Vancouver 2010 Olympic clothing but I couldn’t find any toques I wanted. We then headed my home for a bit to watch an episode of Coupling, a BBC series that Benoit introduced us to. It’s quite a funny show and we recommend that you take a look at it.
We then picked up some St. Hubert and headed for Vero’s and scarfed it down before we headed out to the National Arts Center to watch the French play, Broue.
Broue is a play that started on March 21, 1979. That’s thirty years ago for those non-mathematicians reading this! It turns out that three guys from Quebec; Marc Messier, Marcel Gauthier and Michel Côté created a play which takes place in a tavern and consists of a revolving set of characters who enter the tavern. They each play different characters in the play so it’s funny to see the caliber of acting in them all.
So after a month of the production, it turned out to be quite the hit so they continued onward but it got bigger, and bigger, and bigger! So big that it holds the Guinness title of the longest running play (at least…according to Wikipedia). I believe the show we were at was somewhere in the 2800’s. That’s quite a few plays in thirty years! This play is so popular that Vero mentioned that it is playing in Ottawa over the next three weekends and they are all sold out. In fact, the three original actors have been doing this play from October – April every year for the past thirty years! That’s quite an accomplishment!
We arrived at the NAC to find Simon and Vero waiting for us. We chatted for a bit and found our excellent seats in the Orchestra and the play started up a little late (I commented that they were probably having a beer backstage!). The stage setup was an old-school tavern and it looked like they had suds coming out of the top of it. There was a clock on the top of the set which indicated the time passing between skits. The play starts out with the bar owner opening up shop at 8AM and having to let a patron inside to have his first beer of the day! This drunkard was quite funny…he asks for his gloves which are behind the bar and when the owner asks him why he doesn’t wear them outside he responds “Because people would try and steal them!”
The skit ends and you see the clock advance in time and new patrons come into the tavern and chat it up…a Fire Chief, 2 laborers talking with an English fellow, a father and 16 year old son…there’s a motley crew of characters entering the bar during the entire play.
During the intermission, we headed to the bar for a beer. I picked up a beer for Vero and Simon who had run to the washroom but I didn’t realize they were going to pick up their own beer on the way back! We had a good chuckle at the misfortune (I call it misfortune because the intermission was over by the time we finished one beer!).
When we headed back in, we saw our friend Marie-Claude (who is an usher at the NAC) and she motioned something to Vero and Vero told me that former Prime Minister Jean Chretien was a few rows behind us! Sure enough, I nonchalantly turn around and he’s there chatting with some people in front of him. I felt like I was part of high society this evening, which is a hilarious statement if you were at the NAC. There was quite an assortment of patrons in the theater that night!
The rest of the play was enjoyable and all in all, I had a great time. It was quite hard to hear the actors as they didn’t have their microphones turned up high enough. I felt really bad for the people in the back of the theater. I also had a hard time understanding half of the play because they used a lot of slang, or their characters were using methods of speaking that I wasn’t used to (hyper fast speaking, stuttering, slurring, etc.) I still got the gist of it and had a great time.
The play is well worth checking out! I’m sure you can find a time to go see it in the next thirty years!
iplaying: Let Me Give the World To You – The Smashing Pumpkins (Machina Acoustic Demos)