English language plays from now till Christmas...

Last night a packed house jammed the 2nd floor sauna known as the Mainline Theatre on Main Street just south of Duluth to see 16 free promos clips from upcoming (and a few currently running) plays in Montreal. The beer was free and there were a lot of enthusiastic, charismatic, talented people on both the stage and simply sitting in the audience.

   It was a really great idea by the QDF and made me want to see a lot of these plays.

   They will apparently be promo-ing the Winter season in December, so don't miss that if you can help it.

   Here's my quick impression of each of the 16 offerings.

Reefer Madness, playing until September 25 showcased a singing Jesus flanked by four lovely scantily clad leggy showgirls and two studly young men as the chorus, (part of at least a cast of 9) they sang their ironic number against the consumption of the wacky weed. The song was kinda cute but hey you had me at leggy showgirls. ($20)

WISTA (West Island Student Theatre) then did a big musical number of their own for a play called Le Cercle d'Orandour: A Musical Cabaret, which will play just two nights at Lindsay Place High Oct 1 and 2. About a dozen young women and a couple of guys sang a pretty cool number which involved a lot of complex harmonies. High energy, impressive.

Henry 5. Seven actors, including a very talented tall guy as well as Christopher Moore read a small snippet from Shakespeare's Henry V, Persephone Theatre's follow up to their acclaimed Macbeth which impressed many at the McCord Museum a couple of years ago. The actors had not practiced their scene at all becuase it's only on from November 4 to 13 (Monument National) but looked impressive nonetheless. $25.

Imago Theatre's Champs de Mars, well we didn't get to see a scene from this one but the organizers hyped it with an effusive diction, saying the translation of the Pierre-Michel Tremblay play is both funny and touching and tells of the problems of returning soldiers, a relevant story as many young men and women return from Afghanistan badly banged up. It's on from Nov 18- December 4. $22.

For Art's Sake, this one as well did not feature a scene but rather a description of a story of a 14 year old lonely boy who loves art in the absence of his busy mother. A young bearded guy dressed as a painting came on the stage to kinda be funny with a deadpan woman who was describing the play, hard to tell if it would suck or not. It plays from November 5 to 14 at the Centaur.($18).

Who/Nani/Qui showcased a little number in which about 3 of the 18 actors (two African men and a blonde Canadian) appeared and did a little African dance thing after talking about how cold Montreal is in the winter. Warning: they pull people up on stage, so don't sit in the front row if you're not prepared to show your moves. $10 at Concordia Nov 25-28.

Dark Owl, from Nov 16 - 28 at the Mainline. It's a story of a miesrable old woman who works in a fish factory in the early 70s in the Maritimes, who alternates her grumbling between English and French. A cast of six. Twenty bucks. We saw Liz Burns do a monologue about the misery of her job picking parasites out of cod tails. $20. Seemed a bit like La Sagouine, which wasn't my favourite play.

For Medea at Centaur Holly Frankel (aka Miss Sugarpuss) sang a number with two backing singers, alongside three other musicians. It seems to be about Greece in the 20s, based on the Greek myth. $20 Oct 21 to 30.

For Bolsheviki,Guy Sprung came out with a TV displaying David Fennario's take on an old soldier from the Point who he met in the early 70s, talking about WWI. Alas Sprung had the TV turned the wrong direction so I couldn't see much of it, but having seen people trying their hand at imitating people from the Point for all my life, I didn't much get a rush from it. Spung also hyped the Pipeline which is a reading of some promising local drama writing. Bain St. Michel November 11 to 28. $20.

For The Flood Thereafter, someone came up and simply talked about the play which is $26 at the La Chapelle theatre from October 15 to 23. It's done by very nice people at Talisman who seem to take their stuff seriously.

Black Theatre Workshop's boss Tyrone Benskin was supposed to show up to do a scene from Raisin in the Sun but he was supposedly too sick to make it so a blonde young woman who was not black at all, came and talked about the production, which also stars Ranee Lee (I'm not a massive fan of hers). It's on from Nov 24 to Dec 5 at the Centaur. I have found the BTW a little quiet since Benskin took over so I'm hoping for something big here. $24.

Possible Worlds looks very neat. It's a 20 year old play done by a Toronto mathematician. I've seen a French version which was reasonably good but the snippet presented by about 7 actors last night looked very promising. It's a cool sorta sci-fi story about the theft of a brain or something, I can't quite remember but the scene last night was quite good and the actors looked ready. Oct 13-23 Mainline.

The Harvest Theatre Festival is a week of gay plays with this years offerings being four lesbian plays, the most hyped of which is The Ressurection of Joan of Arc starting Katie Parsons who looked a little uncomfrotable with the hype of the organizer, she's doing an English and then a French version Oct. 7- 10 at the Freestanding Theatre or something, a small place on the Main. We didn't see a scene from this.

Fat Pig, almost done its run from 8 to 18 September at Theatre St. Catherine looks kinda neat for $17. An excellent little scene with Timothy Diamond and Emma Lanza was played in which you can see the fat girl charming the young handsome guy. It received perhaps the loudest ovations in the entire evening.

Captive Audience with Sarah Quinn on from Oct 13-17 was promoed by Quinn flashing cards with words written on them because she apparently does not have a big voice or lost her voice or something. She plays God. Or something. It's a one person play. I think she actually talks in the play though. I found the promo boring. $15 at the Freestanding Room Oct 13-17.

The night finished with a promo for an improv event from October 6 to 9 in which two energetic young hunky guys got a lot of laughs with some non sensical dialogue.