✭✭✩✩✩

by Michel Tremblay, translated by Linda Gaboriau, directed by Leah Cherniak

Tarragon Theatre, Toronto

February 28-April 2, 2006

"Six Times is Not the Charm"

The Tarragon Theatre is currently presenting the Toronto premiere of Michel Tremblay’s “Past Perfect” (“Le Passé antérieur”) in Linda Gaboriau’s translation.  The play premiered in Montreal in 2003.  The main character is Albertine, who features in several of Tremblay’s novels but is best known from the play “Albertine, in Five Times” (“Albertine, en cinq temps”) from 1984.  In that play Tremblay has five actresses portray Albertine at ages 30, 40, 50, 60 and 70 who interact with each other and with her sister Madeleine, portrayed by only one actress.  “Past Perfect” is solely concerned with one evening in the life of Albertine at age 20.  While it may seem that this prequel fills us in on the missing decade in Albertine’s life, it does not, in fact, tell us anything we could not have deduced from the earlier play.  “Past Perfect” an immeasurably lesser work made worse by misguided direction.       

The intermissionless 105-minute-long play is set in the 1930s.  Albertine has supposedly recovered from a nervous breakdown brought on when her boyfriend Alex dumped her for her younger sister Madeleine.  In fact, she is still consumed with rage and passion and has donned her sister’s new dress hoping to meet Alex when he comes by for Madeleine and to win him back.  In a series of one-on-one confrontations, Albertine’s mother, her sister, her brother and finally Alex himself each tell Albertine that her ploy is futile, that she should face reality, that she should listen to others for a change and that her self-centredness drives people away.  To counter them, Albertine insists that no one understands her because her passion is so absolute. 

The first problem with the play is that its central character is not merely unsympathetic but actively obnoxious and does not change in the course of the action.  Indeed, Albertine’s primary stance is that she will not change.  One might think when Alex himself says he does not and did not love her that Albertine might come to her senses, but, no, she insists that he is wrong.  The second problem is that the play is inherently repetitive.  Since Albertine refuses to change we basically see the same conversation four times in a row.  The reappearance of her mother at the end makes it five.  Rather than the richness of “Albertine, in Five Times”, “Past Perfect” gives the impression of thin material that long overstays its welcome.

To make matters worse, director Leah Cherniak has decided to fix the play by emphasizing its metatheatricality.  It is clear from the text that Albertine is caught up not in the passion of love as she thinks but in the passion of playing someone spurned in love.  As if the play did not already underscore this five times, Cherniak decides that Caroline Cave will act the role of Albertine in a highly theatrical manner to contrast with the naturalism of the other four characters. 

The trouble is that Cherniak has an extraordinarily limited view of theatricality.  Cave shouts and snarls all her lines from start to finish, strikes poses and indulges in all manner of melodramatic gestures.  As if to justify this approach Cherniak has clips of films from the 1930s screened on the back wall of the set.  This backfires because one can’t help but notice how subtly and elegantly Greta Garbo and Bette Davis suffer compared to the screaming harpy Cherniak has made of Albertine.

Cave has shown on numerous occasions what a subtle actor she is, but Cherniak’s direction gives her no room for subtlety.  She has Cave begin at such a high volume level and in a mode so over the top that she leaves her nowhere to go for the rest of the play.  It’s to Cave’s credit that she is able to carry off such trying display of intensity with no sign of exhaustion.

In contrast, Cherniak has directed the other four characters to give understated performances.  This also has drawbacks.  As Victoire, Albertine’s long-suffering mother, Nancy Beatty is at once an instantly familiar Tremblay character, but her low-key delivery of lines means they are not always clearly articulated.  Claire Calnan, who on the night I saw her seemed to have a bad cold, presents Madeleine as a much weaker figure than one would expect from “Albertine, in Five Times”.  It’s impossible to see how Madeleine would remain Albertine’s primary confidante for decades to come.  Jeffrey R. Smith is well cast as Albertine’s gay brother Édouard and is best at suggesting that an underlying rapport exists between them despite their professed dislike.  From Brendan Gall’s first entrance as Alex we know instantly he is no match for Albertine in either passion or desire to fight.  Gall plays him as such a milquetoast it’s hard to see how he could possible be the unwavering focus of Albertine’s all-consuming passion.  Indeed, if Cherniak’s goal is to make Albertine look ridiculous, her direction of Gall does the trick.

In accordance with Cherniak’s use of film clips, designer Yannik Larivée places heavy red curtains on either side of the back wall as if Albertine’s living room were also a cinema.  On the square thrust stage he has placed the family’s shabby furniture on a revolve.  On the one hand, this introduces some sense of movement into a static situation.  On the other hand, the revolve makes only one complete turn during the action thus reinforcing the feeling that absolutely nothing has happened in the play.  Albertine is emotionally (and literally) in exactly the same spot as when the play started except that her irrational position has become even more entrenched.  As is so often the case with prequels, many people after seeing “Past Perfect” will wish that Tremblay had left well enough alone since this Albertine is so immeasurably narrower a person than the woman of “Albertine, in Five Times.” 

©Christopher Hoile

Note: A version of the review appeared in TheatreWorld (UK) 2006-03-27.

Photo: Nancy Beaty and Caroline Cave. ©2006 Yannick Larivée.