Among Montreal’s unique theatrical offerings this season is Ana, a visually stunning co-production between Montreal’s Imago Theatre and Scotland’s Stellar Quines, taking place at Francophone Quebecois cultural institution Espace Go, November 22 to December 10.

“Edinburgh and Montreal are both seen as capitals for festivals, which is interesting, but rarely do we see productions that have been co-created with artists, on stage, off stage, in all aspects,” says Clare Schapiro, Imago’s Artistic and General Director. “That makes it very exciting. We’ve been working with the amazing Quebec theatre director Serge Denoncourt for three years, and Muriel Remanis, artistic director of Stellar Quines since 2005 and here we are now, with a full production that is not only bilingual, but has Scots actors speaking French, Montreal actors speaking English, as well as many other languages.”

Ana’s story spans thousands of years, inspired by the Sumerian myth of the goddess Inanna, who could split herself and be in more than one place at a time. We follow shape-shifter Ana as she makes choices that lead her from a roadside circus lead by a ringmaster, throughout time, around the world and through myth, fiction and reality that paint a picture of women’s history.

The ties between Quebec and Scotland also inspired the creative process of the play, with issues of identity, independence and politics coming to the forefront. “There are similarities in our cultures and our politics and yet we are also so different,” says Schapiro. In her experience of rehearsing Ana in Montreal, Scottish actor Frances Thorburn says, “Many Scots have a lot of fire in their belly – there’s a lot of passion that you can’t create artificially, it just exists in people as a spirit of who they are. I think that is apparent in both Scots and Quebecois people, and the kind of passion I see on stage here has been exciting to me.”

Along with Ana, the Montreal stage lights up this season with more universal stories. Three productions at the Centaur Theatre delight in different ways: modern comedy of manners God of Carnage (to December 4), Christmas hockey comedy-drama Four Minutes If You Bleed (November 24 to December 3) and the adult-oriented cabaret Urban Tales (December 8–17).

Montreal’s great Black Theatre Workshop sits down at the dinner table to tell of a journey from Africa to Canada in Stori Ya, while Teesri Duniya Theatre takes a personal look at the Israel/Palestine conflict. And boxing, though not Boxing Day, enters the domestic ring in Cornered at Theatre Sainte Catherine (November 23 to December 3). And last but absolutely not least, what would the holiday stage be without the annual production of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens‘ The Nutcracker (December 10–30)?

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Written, composed and performed by John Gray with Eric Peterson, the piece has played to critical acclaim in sold-out houses across the country. The story is classic. This latest revival finds Peterson’s Bishop as an old man rummaging through memories, reflecting on the choices and events that have shaped him. William Avery “Billy” Bishop was a trouble-maker and military academy failure who went on to become a legendary WWI flying ace, darling of the British Empire and colonial hero. Inspired partly by Bishop’s memoir Winged Warfare, John Gray wrote the play as an intimate first-person reflection of Bishop’s wartime rise. Eric Peterson stars as Bishop and over a dozen other characters with Gray as his piano-playing sidekick.

In the 33 years since its premiere, Billy Bishop has played every major theatre in Canada, toured worldwide, including on and off Broadway and London’s West End and won numerous awards, among them the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle award. The play’s poignancy and staying power stems from Gray and Peterson’s heartfelt storytelling, keen exploration of personal and cultural identity and the meaning of survival through the lens of war. Funny and moving, Gray and Peterson’s portrait of Bishop is not simply a story of an unlikely hero in one of the world’s bloodiest wars, but a story of survival in all its forms.

Billy Bishop Goes to War is presented in association with the Montreal High Lights Festival.

(Tip: On Monday nights following the play, some of the actors and designers will remain on stage to take questions from the audience – an intimate opportunity for audiences to engage up close and personal with the professionals.)

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DETAILS

Billy Bishop Goes to War, February 13 – March 6, 2011

Segal Centre

Box Office: (514) 739.7944

5170 Côte-Ste-Catherine Road

Métro: Côte-Ste-Catherine/Snowdon

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In the cold of January Montreal’s premier English-speaking theatre heats things up with their Wildside Festival, a program of risqué and out-there theatre productions culled from the best of the festivals that have graced the city’s theatres over the past year. My personal favourite of these is Neon Nightz, a tour-de-force cabaret show that both titillated and moved me when I saw it at the Edgy Women Festival last summer.

Written by Sasha Van Bon Bon, Montreal’s most admired and beloved sex columnist for almost two decades [read her column in the alt-weekly Mirror], it’s an account of her years as a riot-grrl stripper in Montreal clubs in the early ‘90s, when the laws were laxer and the music was all Afghan Whigs and Nirvana.

Told in a series of dance numbers like you’d see in a real dance club, Sasha combines some truly athletic pole-dancing moves by her alter ego, Kitty Neptune (a well-known fixture on the Toronto burlesque scene) with erudite monologues about the experiences she had and the people she met while she was a dancer.

These range form the sublime (a piece about a couple who were her regulars and were rediscovering sex in their late middle age) and the awesomely ridiculous (prosthetic cleavage! Bud bikinis! Towering heels!), Sasha leads us by the hand towards the show’s stunning conclusion, a piece about the meaning of sex, the uses of anonymity, and the chorus of shame and pleasure, saints and sinners, we all become in the dark. Montrealers will welcome a chance to get to know Sasha better, in the flesh as it were. But for visitors, Sasha’s passionate, sentient work is also an opportunity to get to know the city’s history and pathos better: Where were you during the great ice storm of 1997? For a full programme of the Centaur’s Wildside Festival, see the schedule here.  Other recommended shows include the burlesque murder mystery Miss Sugarpuss Must Die! and Uncalled For, Montreal’s most out-there comedy troupe.

Guest blogger: Melora Koepke

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