Reviews 2015
Reviews 2015
✭✭✭✭✩
by Red One Theatre Collective, directed by Tyrone Savage
Red One Theatre Collective, Storefront Theatre, Toronto
December 17-22 & 28-31, 2015
“The Devil’s no match for a tale told well”
In a holiday season awash with all manner of Christmas-themed theatre, the Red One Theatre Collective has found a niche that has not been filled, namely, the New Year’s Eve play. On December 17 the group gave the world premiere of The Chasse-Galerie, a collective creation enlivened with original music and lyrics by James Smith. The show, inspired by a Quebecois legend, has such unity of style and purpose, you would never know it was written by a collective. But so it is and the resulting production is pure, rumbustious, toe-tapping, foot-stomping fun.
Director Tyrone Savage, known best as an actor at the Stratford Festival, learned of the legend while in Quebec and thought it would be perfect for a play. If one looks up the term “chasse-galerie’ in a Quebecois dictionary like the Dictionnaire du français plus, one reads: “Groupe de personnes qui, ayant conclu un pacte avec le diable, sont transportées à toute vitesse la nuit en canot d’écorce à travers les airs vers en endroit qu’elles ont choisi” (“Group of people who, having made a pact with the devil, are transported at night at high speed in a wooden canoe through the air to a place of their choice” [my translation]).
The term comes from a Quebecois folktale that mingles First Nations’ tales of a flying canoe with the French version of the European myth of the “Wild Ride”, where supernatural huntsmen are led across the sky by a god like the Germanic Woden or a ghost like Herne the Hunter. (The main reference to this myth in Shakespeare is when Falstaff disguises himself as Herne the Hunter for a nighttime tryst with Mistress Ford in The Merry Wives of Windsor.)
The Red One Theatre Collective have taken liberties with the legend for practical reasons but mainly to realize its humorous potential. The ROTC version concerns four female coureurs des bois who find themselves lonely, unhappy and out of food in their logging camp on New Year’s Eve. All the four can think of is how much happier they would be on this night if they could celebrate with loved ones back in Montreal, a city 70 leagues away. Michelle Doucette (Kat Letwin) could see her boyfriend Michel-Paul (Michael Cox), Leigh-La LaSalle (Dana Puddicombe) could also see her boyfriend who, oddly enough, is also named Michel-Paul. The pious virgin, Alexandra Dugarde (Tess Benger), could visit with her best friend Jaune (Alicia Toner). And the camp leader Toba Lévesque (Shaina Silver-Baird) will be happy simply to be away from the cold and darkness for one night.
Just after the four express their desires who should appear by a man dressed as an itinerant monk named Damien (Jonas Widdifield), who rather suspiciously has been travelling for six weeks, six days and six hours. When he hears what the four wish they could do that New Year’s Eve, he tells them he can make it possible. He says he can help them become a chasse-galerie. All they need is an ordinary canoe and some magic words he will tell them and they can fly off to Montreal and be back the next day. There are, however, three conditions: 1) they must avoid any swearing since swearing in Quebec involves words with a religious connotation; 2) they must not touch any crosses or religious objects; and 3) they must be back at the camp before dawn. If any one of them breaks any one of these rules, all four will forfeit their souls to him and spend eternity in Hell. Well, I guess we know now that Damien is not really a monk. But he also isn’t the big D himself. Instead, he seems to be a lesser devil who is trying to work his way up the infernal hierarchy to a better position.
Much humour is had when the coureurs consider the proposition and realize that the only way they can stop swearing is to forego drinking (as if that will be an option on New Year’s Eve). Damien does not actually travel with the coureurs on their way to Montreal, as some illustrations show, but he and his feline familiar Lucy (Vanessa Salazar) are already there and have taken on human form when the women arrive. The stories of how the four women try to resist temptation on New Year’s Eve are hilarious and very well written. With their primary hangout a tavern called La Chasse-Galerie, the stories are interspersed with songs and dances.
James Smith’s songs have an authentic folk feel and are delivered with gusto. Especially memorable are the drinking song “I Love Whisky and You Do Too” directed at the unfortunate Michelle and a Quebecois French swearing song “Esti tabernak, tabernak, esti, esti tabernak vierge!” done as a sing-a-long with the whole audience. Ashleigh Powell choreographs dances with fancy footwork just shy of actually step-dancing and her polkas and reels are real roof-raisers.
The eleven-member cast includes actors, singers and musicians, and some incredibly talented individuals who do all three. The four actors who play the coureurs are all well chosen and convincingly act like a group of longtime buddies. As Michelle, Kat Lewin has the most humorous storyline and and plays it perfectly. We first see Michelle as the most foul-mouthed and rough-and-tumble of the group, but when she hears that Leigh-La LaSalle has a new boyfriend with the same name as her own boyfriend and the same habits, we see how Michelle is capable of amusingly restraining herself from comment or attack. The ban on drinking is hardest on Lewin’s character and in the face of a entire drinking song directed against her she shows us how anger and desire compete for dominance in the put-upon woman.
Tess Benger, who also plays the cello, finds much humour in the Alexandra’s pious naiveté, but her storyline is more serious and, played so well, helps give the show a note of sadness amidst all the frivolity. Dana Puddicombe as Leigh-La and Shaina Silver-Baird as Toba fill out the group and both have moments to shine.
As Damien, Jonas Widdifield is much more effective as an actor than a singer. The glint in his eye and the curl of his smile tell us well before Damien’s makes his wager that something sinister lurks beneath his jolliness. As his familiar Lucy, Vanessa Salazar fills her performance with a mixture of feline sensuality and malice. Michael Cox, who not only is a fine singer and actor but plays the upright piano, is very funny as duplicitous and increasingly drunken Michel-Paul, while Chris Murray, who is also a super fiddle player, is exactly right as the dark, handsome stranger that Toba needs in her life.
For this production the Storefront Theatre has been completely reorganized by set designers Bronwen Lilly and John Leberg. They have taken down any barrier between the lobby and the acting space and placed the audience in alley formation along the east and west walls of the theatre. They have decorated the whole space to look like a tavern with paintings on the wall referring to the Chasse-Galerie legend, a real bar for patrons at the north entrance and a fake bar for the characters to the south. Musicians are also placed at both ends of the alley so when there is singing and dance it is in true stereo. Those sitting along the western wall will have the advantage of being able to see the shadow puppet screen over the fake bar where Daniel Brière’s cut paper silhouettes illustrate the action.
With its spooky Canadian subject matter, Tyrone Savage’s taut direction, Holly Lloyd’s clever costumes, James Smith’s wide range of music from moody background music to rowdy folksongs, The Chasse-Galerie is a loveable, imaginative show to keep you laughing, singing and stomping with pleasure not just during the performance but long after. If the show becomes an annual event as ROTC hopes, it will serve as a fine alternative to Toronto’s many other seasonal shows.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photos: (from top) Dana Puddicombe, Shaina Silver-Baird, Tess Benger, Kat Letwin; Tess Benger, Shaina Silver-Baird and Dana Puddicombe; Sam L Esai, Chris Murray, Mike Cox, Vanessa Salazar and Jonas Widdifield. ©2015 John Gundy.
For tickets, visit http://thestorefronttheatre.com.
2015-12-19
The Chasse-Galerie