Reviews 2014
Reviews 2014
✭✭✭✭✩
by Martin Bellemare, directed by Mario Borges
Les Productions Kléos, Berkeley Street Theatre Upstairs, Toronto
November 26-30, 2014
Georges: “J’ai perdu ma référence dans le monde”
Le Chant de Georges Boivin is a wonderfully funny, warm-hearted play. The fact that it stars the great Québécois actor Pierre Collin, who plays at least a dozen roles, is reason enough to see it. But the play itself, winner of the Gratien Gélinas Award in 2009, tells a fascinating story that sweeps away the stereotypes people too often associate with old age. Playwright Martin Bellemare does not claim that life begins at 70, but he does demonstrate that dreams and a zest for life need not diminish with the passage of time.
Bellemare’s solo play thrusts us in media res as Georges Boivin accompanied by three friends, Jean-Pierre, Clément and Gérard, sets off to travel from Quebec to Vancouver to find Georges’ first love, Juliette. Georges knows she has married but does not know her married name and all he has is an outdated address, yet he feels sure that he will be able to find her and has convinced his three friends to come along. This introduction allows Bellemare to flip back and forth between the car trip in the present and Georges’ reminiscences. Thus, Georges’ journey forward in the present also becomes a journey backwards to reclaim his past.
What has impelled Georges to make this cross country trip is the recent death of his beloved wife Ginette. Since Georges mourns her passing every day, one question the play raises is why Georges feels such a need to locate the first woman he ever loved. Georges gives the answer near the very end of the play when he says, “J’ai perdu ma référence dans le monde” (“I’ve lost my point of reference in the world”). Finding Juliette is not the act of finding a woman to replace Ginette, but rather finding that one other person who can give him the sense he exists and that his life is important.
Bellemare makes this point near the very beginning of the play when he has Gérard say, “Des fois, Quand je regarde en arrière, Je suis capable de voir des étapes dans ma vie. D’autres fois, Rien. Comme si tout ce qui était derrière moi C’était arrivé à quelqu’un d’autre” (Sometimes, when I look back, I can see the stages of my life. Other times – nothing. As if everything behind me had happened to someone else”). Gérard’s negative feeling is what Georges feels and he makes the journey in hopes of banishing it.
Georges’ existential plight is what gives the play its depth. On the surface, however, it is a lovingly observed comedy. Georges’ companions could not be more different. Jean-Pierre is deaf and hardly says a thing but he also has the most acute memory of the group. Gérard is loud and gruff. And Clément is the oldest at 92, is still married and speaks in an affected Parisian accent. The closer the travellers come to Vancouver, the more Georges’ goal seems impossible.
Pierre Collin is an ideal Georges. Tough and crotchety on the outside but emotional and filled with longing on the inside. Collin differentiates Georges’ three travelling companions so well that soon we know who is speaking simply by Collin’s change of voice and gesture. Collin also plays a host of minor characters, including himself and Juliette when they were young, so that the play play becomes a real tour de force for the actor.
Designer Michel St-Amand has given the play a minimalist look with only a single chair for a prop and screen at the back where moon shines. It turns out the screen conceals several surprises while Alain Jenkins’ soundtrack instantly creates the ambience of whatever place Georges happens to be. Just as the play begins in media res it ends in media res – a decision by Bellemare that some may find exciting, others disconcerting.
When Bellemare was aged 17 to 20, he worked as a hospital orderly with older people who were classified as “confused”. As he says in his Author’s Note, “I wanted to give voice to a character not often seen in theatre”. His play is really a gift to a senior actor and you can tell that Collin truly relishes the plays’s demands. It is a play that makes one thankful that Bellemare wrote it, thankful an actor like Collin acts it and thankful that the Théâtre français de Toronto has brought the play and Collin here to Toronto for us to enjoy. Let’s hope some Ontarian playwright will be inspired by Bellemare’s example to write such a fine, multifaceted work for one of our many senior actors.
Le Chant de Georges Boivin is performed in French with English surtitles.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photo: Pierre Collin. ©2014 Victor Diaz Lamich.
For tickets, visit http://theatrefrancais.com.
2014-11-27
Le Chant de Georges Boivin