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written and directed by Yves Simard

DynamO Théâtre, Young People’s Theatre, Toronto

October 10-21, 2012

“Dynamic Storytelling from DynamO Théâtre”

Young People’s Theatre has opened its 2012/13 season with a fantastic show by DynamO Théâtre of Montreal.  I on the Sky (Devant moi, le ciel in French) written and directed by Yves Simard forgoes words to use a combination of mime, crown, dance, acrobatics and video to tell its story.  DynamO Théâtre is like a five-person Cirque du Soleil where the storytelling comes first and all else exists as integrated components to serve that single purpose.  The result is an intense 55-minute long work that in its humour and emotion is more effective than many of the recent Cirque shows that have passed through town. 

The story tells of a young girl (Andréanne Joubert) who is blown in on a great wind storm and finds herself abandoned in a park.  She finds a place on a bench that faces forward a few feet from one facing backward.  There she observes the various people who pass by and has flashbacks to the life she left behind.  Marie-Antoine Castonguay signals the change from the present to the past by changes in her video projections on the screen behind the girl.  Suddenly the bright sky with scudding scattered clouds turns to snow or rain or to an interior shot looking out of windows into the night.  In these flashbacks we see that the girl came from a happy family with loving parents (Hugues Sarra-Bournet and Marie-Ève Lafontaine) and a competitive younger sister (Laurianne Brabant).  We see she was a pianist about to give a recital.  She also has a boyfriend (Frédéric Nadeau).  Things turn bad when her boyfriend is inducted into the army but refuses to serve.  He is captured by three people in long white coats with high collars that make them look like the Russian Imperial Guard and executed.  For reasons I wish were clearer, this causes her family to flee but the girl becomes separated from them. 

The flashbacks are presented in roughly chronological order interspersed with the going-on in the park that the girl observes from her spot on a park bench.  There is the sleepy park worker (Nadeau) who goes about picking up litter; the businessman (Sarra-Bournet) who is always on his cellphone; the fashionista (Lafontaine), also always on her cellphone, carrying ever more bags from luxury stores; the construction worker (Nadeau) who keeps trying to eat his lunch that the businessman accidentally steals; the old, bent-over woman (Lafontaine) who uses her umbrella with both hands like a walker and sits on the girls bench to feed the birds. 

What particularly strikes the girl are the glimpses she gets of another family quite unlike her own.  Here the parents (Sarra-Bournet and Lafontaine) continually argue, each trying to take possession of their little girl (Brabant).  The girl on the bench sees how her counterpart runs away from the situation at home only to get caught up in a gang of kid in hoodies who harass her and steal her copy of music by Bach.  After much taunting of the girl on the bench with the music, the girl’s counterpart eventually defies the gang and returns the music to her. 

All of this communicated without words.  The use of action can be as simple as the boyfriend taking his military cap and throwing to the ground to show he will not fight.  People struggling with their umbrellas is enough to conjure up the storm.  On the other hand, the movements can be as complex as the battle between the construction worker and the businessman over their cellphones as they chase each other and use the trampoline hidden between the backs of the two park benches to somersault over each other.  The acrobatics include full layout flips and the girl jumping high enough to land standing on her father’s shoulders plus general tumbling on the mats around the benches.  The key factor is that the acrobatics are always used in service of the story.              

Atmospheric music by Christian Légaré heightens the action as does the lighting of Sylvain Letendre in changing the mood.  Légaré’s music alternates with keyboard music by Johann Sebastian Bach, when the girl sits on her suitcase and practices her fingering.  We also hear it when the park worker puts on his headphones making us wonder how long it will be before the two discover they both love the same composer. 

The girl’s first day on the bench is alienating as she tries to understand her new surroundings and retreats into memories of her lost family for comfort.  But at the end of the play when the sequence of comings and goings starts again and she (and we) see the same characters pass by doing the same things, we fells as she does that a sense of familiarity with her new surroundings is finally starting to take hold, and the feeling grips us as she turns to face the wide sky on the screen behind her, that everything may turn out to be all right. 

From simple gestures and facial expressions to vast leaps and aerial flips, the range of ability of the troupe of five performers is impressive as is the imagination of Yves Simard, who choreographed every detail of the piece.  The YPT recommends I on the Sky for grades 3-7, but I think this is such a dynamic work and so well performed that people of any age will enjoy it.  Everyone, certainly not only young people, have experience the fear of isolation in a new place and how that that anxiety gradually dies down as one gets used to the ways of the new world.  To see such a subtle psychological change presents in such a vivid, highly physical way is truly a remarkable experience.   

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.

Photo: Andréanne Joubert (on bench) and the cast of I on the Sky. ©2010 Robert Etcheverry.

For tickets, visit http://youngpeoplestheatre.ca.