Reviews 2010
Reviews 2010
✭✭✭✭✩
by Gratien Gélinas, directed by Perry Schneiderman
Théâtre français de Toronto, Berkeley Street Theatre Upstairs, Toronto
October 29-November 7, 2010
For students of Canadian theatre Les Fridolinades is essential viewing. Gratien Gélinas, the father of Québecois theatre, created the character of Fridolin for the radio in 1937. The next year saw the first of many stage revues based on these radio pieces that were the first to reflect everyday Canadian life on stage in everyday language. Of the hundreds of sketches and monologues Gélinas wrote, director Perry Schneiderman has carefully chosen nine. With gentle humour they provide a rare glimpse into Canadian life from 1937 to 1946 and bring up themes still central to Québecois drama.
Fridolin (Michel Séguin) represents how the Québecois would like to see themselves. He’s a naive young boy whose innocence makes him asks questions about everything he encounters. He wonders why people are so anxious to have their baby talk when all they do is tell him to shut up later. When he breaks a window with his emblematic slingshot, he defends himself by asking how a boy is supposed to play when all the open spaces around his house are now covered with apartment buildings. His bright idea for ending the fighting World War II is for the Allies to drop candy instead of bombs on the Germans so that they’ll realize what nice people their fighting and stop. When he phones Mackenzie King to tell him his idea, he realizes he’ll have to pretend he’s Anglophone or he won’t get through.
Les Fridolinades also include numerous sketches where Fridolin does not appear. Three of these are the highlights of the show. The best, perhaps, is a scene of two women (Lina Blais and Nathaly Charrette) playing bingo all the while condemning their husbands for wasting their paycheques in gambling. It’s impossible not to see this as the seed for Les Belles-Soeurs. Another shows the excitement that fills a house when one of the girls (Charrette) has to answer questions from a radio quiz show over the phone. A third is an expertly directed scene of general chaos in a family as they try to get ready in time for mass on Sunday with only one bathroom available.
The actors do not play in a unified style. Séguin tries too hard at seeming boyish. Jocelyne Zucco’s comedy is much too broad. In contrast, René Lemieux, Blais and Charrette come closest to the everyday realism that makes Les Fridolinades so important. If you know Québecois drama only from Michel Tremblay onwards, Les Fridolinades will be a very pleasant eye-opener.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2010-11-01.
Photo: Nathaly Charrette and Lina Blais. ©Marc Lemyre.
2010-11-01
Les Fridolinades