by Michel Tremblay
Translation by Linda Gaboriau
Directed by Robin Bennett
Directed by Robin Bennett
Presented by Cambridge Community Players
at the WODL Festival
Originally premiered in 1984 in Montreal and in 1985 in Toronto, Albertine in Five Times can fairly be called a classic of the Canadian theatre -- most certainly of the French-language theatre in Quebec but even in other provinces and on the English language stages, this is a play to reckon with.
I think one of the things that makes Albertine such a powerful work is the way it speaks to so many different layers of human experience; the roles of women, the bitter realities of French-Canadian society, and the issues of how we remember things and why are all at the core of the play. To me, personally, it speaks loudest of all about the way we in our societies deal with the person who is "different", who sits "outside" social norms, who doesn't really "fit in." At that level, I feel almost anyone can relate to Albertine, or to her sister Madeleine, or even (and more painfully still) to Albertine's unseen children, Therese and Marcel.
Time conventions are torn to quivering shreds in this theatrical world. There are five Albertines on the stage. Albertine at 70 has just arrived at a nursing home where she expects to live out her remaining years. She is surrounded by the Albertines of age 30, 40, 50, and 60, and by her sister Madeleine -- portrayed in her 30s. The five Albertines talk to each other, and argue with each other and Madeleine, and she speaks to more than one of them. This production also upped the stakes by having them interact into each other's spaces, at carefully chosen moments, while they also sometimes met in neutral ground on the more open parts of the stage.
Time conventions are torn to quivering shreds in this theatrical world. There are five Albertines on the stage. Albertine at 70 has just arrived at a nursing home where she expects to live out her remaining years. She is surrounded by the Albertines of age 30, 40, 50, and 60, and by her sister Madeleine -- portrayed in her 30s. The five Albertines talk to each other, and argue with each other and Madeleine, and she speaks to more than one of them. This production also upped the stakes by having them interact into each other's spaces, at carefully chosen moments, while they also sometimes met in neutral ground on the more open parts of the stage.
I've seen the play staged three times now, and it's always a moving experience for me, but this performance mounted by Cambridge Community Players beat all others by a wide margin in ripping open the raw emotions boiling away in the script, and then reconciling them all -- in some degree -- by the end of the evening.
As is expected by the playwright, the piece was performed in a bare box of black curtains and floor, with black risers arranged in a semi-circle. Smaller boxes, in different colours, served as seats and (in one place) as a table.
Lighting worked very effectively throughout the piece -- subtle, but clear at all times. The moon spot at the very end was a bit too overt for my liking, as well as a bit too concentrated in one area, but the company nonetheless made good use of it by coming together in that small area downstage left, standing side by side, and raising their hands in unison. Since the actors stay on stage throughout the piece, there is only one costume to each character, but these were very well chosen and designed for contrasts of colour, texture, and style.
This is a classic example of a play that is primarily an actors' play -- certainly it offers more limited scope for set design, dressing, or lighting work than many shows. So let's get right to the actors. Caitlin Popek as Albertine at 30 projected a haunting sense of vulnerability. Even as she projected, in bitter, harsh words, the rage which led her to beat her daughter, she continually crossed her arms tightly in front of her lest she be left exposed to -- to whatever it was she feared so deeply. Voice clipped and tight and precise, like her hair and dress, she radiated white-hot emotion held under a lid as much as possible.
Albertine at 40: Michelle Hartai. The voice had accelerated until the exact words were sometimes hard to catch, but it wasn't difficult to guess their import. The flood gates opened, this Albertine was letting the rage gush out in floods and torrents. The face twisting from side to side, feet locked together whenever she stood, the character had now become a monstrous outgrowth of her 30-year-old self.
The keynote of Joanne Priebe's Albertine at 50 was her air of desperation. After putting her children aside, she went to work in a cafe and was striving to make herself and her life happy. But always, as she talked of how happy she was and how much her customers loved her BLT sandwiches, there was the edge of desperation in the voice, the tension tightly held in the body, the unspoken sense that she feared her illusion would collapse around her at any moment.
As Albertine at 60, Cathy Moore sat upstage for much of the play, popping tranquilizers and tossing in tart comments ("Who gives a damn about the family?"). When her turn finally came to let it fly, she walked right into Albertine at 50's space, leaned menacingly over her and shook the pill bottle like a death rattle as she warned her younger self to hold onto her illusions while she could. To her fell one of the most wrenching stories of all: the tale of how her world collapsed around her as she had to go to identify her daughter Therese's swollen, disfigured dead body. Moore's hunched shoulders and frozen, snarling face made her the most dislocated and terrifying of the different incarnations of Albertine.
And finally, Albertine at 70. Kathy Burgess beautifully captured the melding of opposites as she moved towards old age, the sense of reconciliation with her past, and the still tart tongue which shot out when one of her younger selves provoked her. It was a moving and subtle realization of a character that has to embody all four of her younger selves in order to work.
By no means an also-ran was Kristine Fortner as Madeleine. She portrayed Albertine's sister as a woman who imagines herself content with her life, but still shows hints of discontent simmering away below the surface. This lent a slight hint of stuck-on airs to her declarations of how good her life could be. Fortner also made clear the bewilderment, and consequent anger, of trying to deal with a sister who was so "different" and so difficult to be near.
Director Robin Bennett shaped this difficult and challenging play into a series of mounting curves of tension, orchestrating a rising set of climaxes as intense as any symphony. The play moved with great intention through all the rhythmic changes from the start right to the finish. Seldom can such an intense 90 minutes in the theatre have passed so quickly.
As is expected by the playwright, the piece was performed in a bare box of black curtains and floor, with black risers arranged in a semi-circle. Smaller boxes, in different colours, served as seats and (in one place) as a table.
Lighting worked very effectively throughout the piece -- subtle, but clear at all times. The moon spot at the very end was a bit too overt for my liking, as well as a bit too concentrated in one area, but the company nonetheless made good use of it by coming together in that small area downstage left, standing side by side, and raising their hands in unison. Since the actors stay on stage throughout the piece, there is only one costume to each character, but these were very well chosen and designed for contrasts of colour, texture, and style.
This is a classic example of a play that is primarily an actors' play -- certainly it offers more limited scope for set design, dressing, or lighting work than many shows. So let's get right to the actors. Caitlin Popek as Albertine at 30 projected a haunting sense of vulnerability. Even as she projected, in bitter, harsh words, the rage which led her to beat her daughter, she continually crossed her arms tightly in front of her lest she be left exposed to -- to whatever it was she feared so deeply. Voice clipped and tight and precise, like her hair and dress, she radiated white-hot emotion held under a lid as much as possible.
Albertine at 40: Michelle Hartai. The voice had accelerated until the exact words were sometimes hard to catch, but it wasn't difficult to guess their import. The flood gates opened, this Albertine was letting the rage gush out in floods and torrents. The face twisting from side to side, feet locked together whenever she stood, the character had now become a monstrous outgrowth of her 30-year-old self.
The keynote of Joanne Priebe's Albertine at 50 was her air of desperation. After putting her children aside, she went to work in a cafe and was striving to make herself and her life happy. But always, as she talked of how happy she was and how much her customers loved her BLT sandwiches, there was the edge of desperation in the voice, the tension tightly held in the body, the unspoken sense that she feared her illusion would collapse around her at any moment.
As Albertine at 60, Cathy Moore sat upstage for much of the play, popping tranquilizers and tossing in tart comments ("Who gives a damn about the family?"). When her turn finally came to let it fly, she walked right into Albertine at 50's space, leaned menacingly over her and shook the pill bottle like a death rattle as she warned her younger self to hold onto her illusions while she could. To her fell one of the most wrenching stories of all: the tale of how her world collapsed around her as she had to go to identify her daughter Therese's swollen, disfigured dead body. Moore's hunched shoulders and frozen, snarling face made her the most dislocated and terrifying of the different incarnations of Albertine.
And finally, Albertine at 70. Kathy Burgess beautifully captured the melding of opposites as she moved towards old age, the sense of reconciliation with her past, and the still tart tongue which shot out when one of her younger selves provoked her. It was a moving and subtle realization of a character that has to embody all four of her younger selves in order to work.
By no means an also-ran was Kristine Fortner as Madeleine. She portrayed Albertine's sister as a woman who imagines herself content with her life, but still shows hints of discontent simmering away below the surface. This lent a slight hint of stuck-on airs to her declarations of how good her life could be. Fortner also made clear the bewilderment, and consequent anger, of trying to deal with a sister who was so "different" and so difficult to be near.
Director Robin Bennett shaped this difficult and challenging play into a series of mounting curves of tension, orchestrating a rising set of climaxes as intense as any symphony. The play moved with great intention through all the rhythmic changes from the start right to the finish. Seldom can such an intense 90 minutes in the theatre have passed so quickly.
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