Arts and Style
The Met does Broadway
By Sharman Yarnell on August 7, 2008
Broadway bound this summer? Consider: A late night walk along Broadway with the neon lights glowing along the streets from 42 Street to Times Square screaming at you, beckoning for you to turn onto them and take in one of the greatest celebrations of the human spirit – the Broadway play...
La tempête a rainswept “Tempest”
By Alidor Aucoin on August 7, 2008
Mother nature provided a thrilling opening at the end of July to the Repercussion Theatre Company’s English language production of The Tempest on Bonsecours Island in the Old Port...
Two by Blue
By Alidor Aucoin on August 7, 2008
“Being Frank”, Ricky Blue’s 70 minute musical cabaret about a Frank Sinatra wannabe running at Théâtre Lac Brome until July 27, is a breezy, beguiling salute to ol’ blue eyes...
Hot Blues
By Alidor Aucoin on July 10, 2008
With two of his stage plays opening on the straw hat circuit one week apart this month, Ricky Blue is suddenly Quebec’s hottest playwright in either language...
Couture as art
By Alidor Aucoin on July 10, 2008
Death can sometimes be a good career move for an artist. Yves Saint Laurent is a case in point. Before he died on June 1, Saint Laurent was considered a brilliant, influential designer whose career in recent years stood still as he wasted his enormous talent on cocaine and alcohol...
Lu: Omaha beach
By Louise V. Labrecque on July 10, 2008
6 juin 1944. Omaha Beach, Omaha « la sanglante », est l’une des cinq plages du débarquement de Normandie, lors de la Seconde guerre mondiale. Le jour J, Bloody Omaha sera le lieu des plus lourdes pertes américaines...
CHUT! Ça commence… «Il était une fois…»
By Louise V. Labrecque on June 26, 2008
Jo Légaré a connu une histoire d’amour avec le peintre Guildo Molinari, cet artiste en arts visuels de grand talent dont l’œuvre est trop peu connue. Jo Légaré parle en prose dans ce récit autobiographique. Un récit bien écrit donne toujours l’impression d’être autobiographique. Et puisque c’est d’amour dont il est ici question, les banalités y sont, comme de la musique, poignantes...
Une excellente lecture d`été
By Esther Delisle on June 26, 2008
Il était une fois un dentiste qui rêvait d’écrire des histoires qui plairaient à des lecteurs. Il rejetait d’emblée l’idée d’«une écriture ampoulée, compliquée pour montrer ce dont je suis capable (...)
Le Piège Américain
By Chris Bumbray on June 26, 2008
The life of Quebec mobster Lucien Rivard is getting the big screen treatment in “Le Piège Américain” (THE AMERICAN TRAP), from local director Charles Binamé- who last directed a film about another Quebecois icon, “Maurice Richard.” Suffice to say, Rivard is a much more controversial figure...
The Audacious Little Redhead of PEI
By Sharman Yarnell on June 26, 2008
Little did she know the affect she'd have on the province's tourist trade and economy when she wrote the story so beloved by Canadians and others in so many countries the world over. She couldn't have conceived that her story and its sequels would be turned into movies, award winning television series and a musical that is staged to sold out houses every year in her home province...
Pour un meilleur entendement
By Pierre K. Malouf on June 12, 2008
«Une recherche valide doit se donner pour finalité la reconquête d’une totalité et elle ne peut dès lors que se déployer dans un espace multidisciplinaire. » Ces paroles furent prononcées en 2000 par Marc Angenot, à l’occasion du lancement simultané de trois (!) ouvrages de sa plume...
Hanganu is RAIC's gold medal laureate
By Alidor Aucoin on June 12, 2008
Dan Hanganu, the Romanian-born architect widely acclaimed for this design of Montreal's Musée d'archéologie et d'histoire de Pointe-à-Callière, believes that much of today's architecture is the work of what he calls "acrobats, who make noise for a period of time, then eventually lose their spark." Many computer designed buildings are, he believes, a "vulgar expression of advanced mediocrity," and lack depth of the art of architecture...
Triennial at the MAC a coherent triumph
By Alidor Aucoin on June 12, 2008
ot so long ago you had to hang out in New York, Los Angeles or Vancouver to see contemporary North American art of any significance. But if you want evidence that art as good and as interesting is being made by Quebec artists, you need look no further than the Triennial at the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal...
Sur mon chemin, j’ai rencontré le réel
By Louise V. Labrecque on June 12, 2008
Que faire ici ? Et pourquoi ? Pourquoi j’écris ? Quels discours, quels pays ? Qui suis-je ? Où vais-je ? La disparition possible dans l’anonymat pousse toujours à une recherche de ce qui constitue son originalité propre...
The joy’s of Quebec’s wild, indigenous ingredients
By Nancy Hinton on June 12, 2008
The fiddleheads have been coming in by the potato sac this spring, officially kicking off the season of wild edibles in my kitchen at Les Jardins Sauvages. For those of you unfamiliar with Les Jardins, it’s a food and restaurant partnership between myself and my forager-par-excellence partner François Brouillard, a foremost field expert on Quebec’s wild ingredients. We’re located just on the way to Rawdon—about 45 minutes drive from Montreal...
St Ambroise Fringe Festival hits 18
By Sharman Yarnell on June 12, 2008
Once again, The Fringe Festival is serving up a cornucopia of stage delictables, with something for everyone. You might say this is art with no strings attached, art with no holds barred, where anything and everything goes. From dance to drag, drama and music, it has it all...
Stage ghosts
By Sharman Yarnell on May 29, 2008
To be or not.... That is the question in many Montrealers minds when it comes to English Theatre. And for good reason...
Histoires de s’entendre
By Louise V. Labrecque on May 29, 2008
Suzanne Jacob a fait de la musique, du théâtre, se passionne pour tout, puise son eau à toutes les sources, écrit des poèmes, des paroles de chansons, des essais. Elle chante, rit, édite, pense et parle. Et elle écrit, elle écrit, elle écrit … !
Le complexe d’Icare de Sébastian Maltais
By P.A. Sévigny on May 29, 2008
Dans un monde où la communication visuelle se trouve souvent réduite à guère plus qu’un gribouillage bidimensionnel non loin du plus commun graffiti de banlieue, certains pourraient considérer la plus récente exposition de Sébastian Maltais comme le début d’une ère nouvelle pour la communauté d’arts visuels montréalaise...
Sex at the Segal
By Alidor Aucoin on May 29, 2008
ryna Wasserman, now in her 10th year as artistic director at The Segal Centre at the Saidye, has one objective for the upcoming season. She’s put together a sensual bill of theatrical fare designed to “sizzle and titillate.” And she’s assembled a team of top-notch directors to oversee the daunting season...
What Leonard taught me about food
By Nancy Hinton on May 15, 2008
Leonard Cohen taught me this about cooking: Do not judge. Just do your thing. Try and please the person on the receiving end, the consumer of your art, whoever he or she is without any expectations of appreciation...
"Equus" is best show in town
By Alidor Aucoin on May 15, 2008
Ignore the script's dubious psycho babble. Equus, playing in French at Théatre Jean Duceppe in Place des Arts until May 31 is electrifying drama, thrilling theatre, and at the moment best show in town...
“Odd Couple” excellent
By Alidor Aucoin on May 15, 2008
The Odd Couple is a time tested, proven draw. The one-liners that fly around the Segal Centre's production of the two mismatched colocataires, finicky Felix (Rod Beattie) and "divorced, broke and sloppy" Oscar, (John Evans) can still pull laughs 40 years after Neil Simon's comedy made its Broadway debut. Everyone who has ever been stuck with an offensive roommate can relate...
L’invitation au voyage
By Louise V. Labrecque on May 15, 2008
« Songe à la douceur, mon amie, ma sœur » ! Oh oui… J’ai la conviction d’avoir été invitée, pour reprendre les mots de Baudelaire, au voyage. J’ai même pensé, amis lecteurs, que vous pouviez lui ressembler, et j’ai aussi souhaité en savoir plus long sur l’auteur… savoir si ce roman lui avait coûté beaucoup d’effort… J’ai dû faire moi-même un énorme effort pour me décider… parce que j’étais obsédée par mes propres interdits...
Que reste-t-il de nos années ?
By Louise V. Labrecque on May 15, 2008
Certains livres ne nous parlent que le temps qu’on les lit. Après, ils se referment et se taisent pour longtemps, voire pour toujours. Certains livres sont réellement ainsi, mais pas Les Années d’Annie Ernaux. Née il y a 67 ans, cette auteure contemporaine tente de comprendre, en signant ce livre, le monde où elle vit, depuis sa naissance jusqu’à aujourd’hui. Cette histoire, qui est un peu celle de sa vie, constitue la somme de tous ses livres...
Emotional Arithmetic
By Sharman Yarnell on May 15, 2008
The shadows of the past are darker in some lives than in others. Those belonging to survivors of the Holocost follow their every move into different continents, into different lifestyles, into different homes. In many cases, they are memories that become a cancer, a cancer that eats away not only in themsleves, but deep into the very core of their families...
Unanimes, nos artistes ?
By Francis Tourigny on May 1, 2008
l y a soixante ans, le Refus global marquait le début de ce qu’on pourrait appeler l’engagement social des artistes québécois. La « liberté de penser et de créer », prônée par les signataires du Refus, a été peu à peu remplacée par la « quête d’identité », suivie de sa conséquence dite logique de prétendue « libération nationale ». Ce fantasme a depuis été chanté, filmé, joué, poétisé et proclamé de toutes les manières imaginables par une pléthore d’artistes québécois. ..
Community action saves Montreal’s music chapel
By P.A. Sévigny on May 1, 2008
When Tremblay administration executives threatened to cut off all the funding as required by the downtown core’s Chapelle Bon Pasteur concert program, an outraged protest from every corner of Montreal’s music community forced the mayor’s office to back off. Once the protest began to work its way into the city’s media, city officials were forced to restore the funding required to maintain one of the city’s more successful and cherished cultural programs...
“Forever Yours Marie-Lou” an aria
By Alidor Aucoin on May 1, 2008
Forever Yours Marie-Lou is one of Michel Tremblay’s early works— he was 27 when he wrote it in 1970, and the script is full of youthful rage and indignation...
Hurray for Lady Day
By Sharman Yarnell on May 1, 2008
She's vivacious and warm. Her soul is the very essence of Jazz and Blues. Few in this city perform it better.
She's Ranee Lee...
Un acte d’orgueil
By Louise V. Labrecque on May 1, 2008
La machine se nourrit de sons. Elle démarre dans la ville, s’emballe dans l’excitation des sens, révèle des algorithmes étranges, urbains, des mystères inquiétants de faune bigarrée. La machine est au cœur du schéma narratif de ce roman de Michel Vézina, La machine à orgueil. En elle, nous apercevons le vide, le manque, le vertige, la profondeur du trou noir...
Surette premieres with a splash
By Alidor Aucoin on May 1, 2008
Roy Surette, who slipped into town unheralded from the Belfrey Theatre in Victoria six months ago to take over as the Centaur Theatre’s artistic director made his directorial debut at the end of March with The Mystery of Maddy Heisler.
