Directed by Stacey Christodoulou
With Anana Rydvald, Sarah C. Carlsen, Dean Makarenko, Alexandra Montagnese and Cedrick Roy
Inspired by the world of H.P. Lovecraft, The Other Theatre manifests a little bit of horror, a
little bit of fear. A young girl’s mysterious disappearance, a mother’s broken memories,
prophecies, secret gardens, games in the forest - stories of the unknowable and the
unnamable. As part of its creative process, The Other Theatre invites the audience to a weeklong
public lab, into a world out of time and out of joint. In English and French.
Section vidéo
une vidéo disponible
Set Design Amy Keith
Costumes Marija Djordjevic
Lighting Design David Perreault Ninacs
Production Manager and Technical Director Richard Piquet
All tickets are PAY WHAT YOU CAN
Presented by The Other Theatre (show's website) in collaboration with Infinithéâtre
5300 rue St-Dominique
Box office (514) 987-1774 ext. 104
Or online with PayPal: http://www.infinitheatre.com/infin-box-office.html
review by Véronique Voyer
Arts & (love’s) craft
Behind the scene, we get in. There was a door on the props; the only way to reach our seat. On the way, spectators walked through the scene where actors totally ignored our venue. They were already in their character, possessed by nervous tics and abrupt gestures.
As the title suggested it, Love’s Craft is about the many ways one’s can act when love is involved. It turns out that this topic would not involve lovers but a mom, a premeditated rape and one’s of too many frenemies’ power games that invaded high school. Instead of romance and seduction, this experimental show explores fear, pain and the unknown, passing by obsessive behaviour not to say mental illness. By doing so, suspense was on and off as the comprehension of this deconstructed narratives.
First, there was a mother who lost her daughter; her monologue slowly turns into a police interview. Then bullying makes his way in the story where two teenagers were bitching around, with their eyes cover by falses-eyes glasses over a thick hair strand that masked their face. Was it a pastiche of the latest fashion trend? Anyhow, those two mean girls targeted a poor guy sweeping the floor and he slowly becomes a creep under their disgusted gazes. It’s funny how the combination of ample time and bored youngsters easily turns into a Machiavellian plan…
The ‘creep’ was sweeping the floor in between two dance moves, and this dance recurs here and there, frenetic and uncontrollable as it pass by each actors. Body moves were changing just like language; French pop out as well in an envolée lyrique about forest. The props where actually impressive on that peculiar theme; the scene is used as a gigantic black board ; actors use chalk to draw childishly on it. Then, lights slowly change as the clearness of the backstage board does. The black chalk turns into a forest made of the shape of tree’s trunk. Then, a few decorative red lights inhabit a tremendous tree’s branch that turns to be invisible through the black board before. It was brilliant.
If the impact of the multidimensional props was impressive and the actors totally immersed in their characters, the story remains fragmented and the meaning enigmatic.