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<b>by Michel Tremblay, translated and directed by John Van Burek
Pleiades Theatre, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, Toronto
January 15-February 2, 2014
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Manon: “Nothing is too beautiful for God”
Pleiades Theatre is currently presenting the first major revival in Toronto of Michel Tremblay’s <i>Damnée Manon, Sacrée Sandra</i> since 1979. Then John Van Burek used the original French title for his English translation. For his revised translation, Van Burek has retitled the play <i>Manon, Sandra and the Virgin Mary</i>. In either case, the play is less a drama that a study of the contrasts and similarities between the sacred and the profane. The play’s overtly schematic nature may be due to its function as the final play and summing up of Tremblay’s 11-play cycle about east-end Montreal that began with <i>Les Belles-Soeurs</i> in 1968. Yet, under the translator’s insightful direction, Irene Poole and Richard McMillan boldly bring their symbolic characters to life.
Teresa Przybylski has designed a rectangular arch that functions as a proscenium to define the smaller playing area in the midst of the surrounding darkness of the Buddies in Bad Times stage. The gauze-filled arch can be lit from within and hidden in the darkness beyond the arch is a huge statue of the Virgin Mary that gradually is illuminated at significant moments. Just in front of the arch is Manon’s simple rocking chair stage right and Sandra’s vanity table and chair stage left. We know Manon and Sandra are meant as opposites before either says a word. As Manon, Irene Poole is clad entirely in black and sits hunched together. As Sandra, Richard McMillan is clad in an off-white dressing gown, legs-crossed and arms seeking out just the right pose.
The play is not a drama as much as two interlinked monologues where Manon and Sandra separately reflect on what they did that day. Though <i>Manon, Sandra</i> does not require a knowledge of Tremblay’s past plays, both are characters who appeared in or were referred to in earlier works. Manon is a character from <i>À toi pour toujours, ta Marie-Lou</i> (1970) and Sandra is the drag queen who engineers the title character’s humiliation in <i>Hosanna</i> (1973). We discover that Sandra’s real name is Michel, which is an intentional reference to the author.
It happens that both Manon and Sandra have made impulsive purchases today. Manon has bought an enormous rosary big enough to fill a shopping bag. Sandra has bought green nail polish and lipstick because of a dream where she remembers the first time she tried on drag in imitating when, as Michel, he dressed up like his sister Thérèse. Much later we discover that Manon and Sandra-as-Michel are cousins and knew each other as children. More than that Michel was the only boy Manon ever loved and Manon was the only girl that Michel ever loved.
Before revealing that there is such a specific connection between the two characters, Tremblay teases us for about 60 of the show’s 90 minutes by making us wonder what, if anything the two have in common. This technique forces us to search for non-plot-related links between the two as we listen and to realize that two people who appear to be complete opposites in fact have very much in common. Manon may deny the flesh and Sandra may indulge the flesh they both have the goal of achieving ecstasy. Ecstasy for both is the obliteration, however momentary, of the boredom of the their existence and the sense that they live in a void. They both live for the moment when they seem taken outside themselves and can believe that there is a greater power beyond their own.
Both live in such isolation that they read the world around them as if it were full of signs meant only for them and that only they can interpret. Manon may be pious and Sandra vulgar, but they both worship a higher power through the body. Manon’s sole companion is a life-sized statue of Mary, while Sandra waits for the arrival of Christian, her black stud. Manon finds herself committing a sin when she notices she is deriving too much pleasure from kissing the crucifix of her rosary. Sandra, meanwhile, plans in detail, how she will worship the body of Christian.
Both Poole and McMillan give superb performances, though Poole has the edge probably because it is easier to make repression interesting than indulgence. Poole, eyes, glowing with desire, be it holy or not, dotes on every detail of her purchase of the rosary and shows more than once that she has a vicious streak she does not acknowledge. The woman who laughs at her on the bus will burn in hell and the boy who later laughs at her when she feels she must sacrifice her rosary is a little demon. Poole brings out the manic intensity in Manon that can instantly switch from piety to hatred to self-hatred. She makes these changes quite frightening, especially in the scene where she threatens God with going over to the Devil herself if He does not visit her soon. Poole makes us see how desperately Manon clings to faith as the only thing she has, not just to save her soul, but to save her from herself. Poole is simply electrifying.
In contrast to Poole, McMillan is all calm and languor. McMillan’s Sandra tries to revel in her iniquity but he makes us constantly sense an underlying dissatisfaction. She yearns for something more permanent than sex, but has convinced herself that no such thing exists. McMillan’s effeminacy is that of the gracefully ageing courtesan who tries to command her body to as much dignity as she can muster. Yet, she is all too aware that there is no real face anymore underneath the hundreds of false faces she has made up. She would love it if the women of the Rue Fabre knew she were really Michel, whom they grew up with and used to confide in. But she thinks it is now impossible to seek out their companionship. Her primary pleasure is watching her former playmate Manon shrivel up in sanctity, living the opposite to her in more ways than one. The one oddity is that McMillan does not put on a Québecois accent but does, unlike Poole, use Québecois accentuation in his speech. Either both should or neither.
While Poole’s Manon arouses a greater sense of pity and fear, McMillan achieves his share of sympathy when, near the end, Sandra finally drops her mask and tells us what he as Marcel has been missing all his life. The ending of the play may seem to be a forced attempt at metatheatre, yet if the play is viewed as the conclusion of a long cycle of plays, it takes on a different purpose. As a playwright Tremblay is acknowledging that not only are these two opposites found in him, since he created both, but found in everyone.
It is hard to imagine that this incisive production of <i>Manon, Sandra and the Virgin Mary</i> could be bettered. It is a must-see for any lover of Canadian theatre or of fine acting.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photo: (from top) Irene Poole and Richard McMillan; Irene Poole and Richard McMillan. ©2014 Cylla von Tiedemann.
For tickets, visit <a href="http://buddiesinbadtimes.com">http://buddiesinbadtimes.com</a>.
<b>2014-01-16</b>
<b>Manon, Sandra and the Virgin Mary</b>