Fringe Festival Reviews #4
Les échos de Katerina et Danse de la mort
Les échos de Katerina et Danse de la mort
How do you get out of a violent situation?
Danse de la mort, a play written by Mehdi Hamazavi Mehr, a creation Marjolayne Auger with Marysole Gagnière as an external eye for the danceand co-director of the production is breathtaking! Welcome to this Beckettian Universe!
Les échos de Katerina is a theatre piece that follows a mysterious sequence of events where we witness the radicalization of the character of Marjolayne Auger. In the Danse de la mort, she thinks she has to save all the fish in a dried-up river. The absurd dialogue between her and the character of Véronique Montpetit, who portrays a traveler, sends the story into the extreme! This all takes place in a brief, breathtaking performance where movement and text are integrated in a smart manner. Madness, fear, suffering, radical gestures, toxic relationships, abuse, trauma, radicalization, and mental health are the ingredients of this theatrical struggle.
With a very simple setting, the two performers make you participate in a story that takes you on a dark journey through difficult emotions. Go see this at the Fringe !
Me and Her
So much to see at the Montreal Fringe Festival!
Caroline Gauthier explores grief, travel, and love in her first one-woman show, Her and Me.
Author and performer Caroline Gauthier recounts the tender care offered to her mother in the final stages of cancer and her subsequent adventurous solo trip through India, equipped with her mother’s 14 year old copy of the Lonely Planet.
When do we truly become ourselves?
In the chapel, the light shines softly on Indian fabrics that decorate the small space, sometimes used as the setting for India and sometimes referring to her mother’s deathbed. This touching and personal story weaves through the traffic of crowded Old Delhi, beyond travels past and present, to land at its final destination, the last goodbye to Caroline’s beloved mother. We are witnesses to the sponge baths and morphine shots given to her mother. Then we follow Caroline during her starry desert nights, take a ride with her in an Indian bus, and see her kissing a handsome nomad. The beautiful narrative, filled with poetic as well as witty language, reconnects both mother and daughter’s travel journals, weaving the stories tightly together.
Paul van Dyck’s direction is spot on and Gauthier is a gifted story teller that takes us on her journey.
Me and Her is a journey through death and life, leaving us with universal questions about where our parents’ legacy ends and our own identity begins, and when is it time to finally come home.
Les échos de Katerina et Danse de la mort takes place at Conservatoire de musique et d’art dramatique du Québec (4750 Henri-Julien) on June 10, 11, 14, and 16 . Info and tickets HERE. Me and Her is at Cité-des-Hospitalières (251 Ave Pins) on June 10, 11, 14, and 15. Info and tickets HERE. Info about all shows at the Montreal Fringe Festival can be found HERE.
Other reviews related to the 2024 Montreal Fringe Festival: The Fringe is Upon us, The Kid Was a Spy, Wit and Wrath: The Life and Times of Dorothy Parker, TA PLACE DANS LA FINALITÉ D’UN MONDE, La Germaine et le Vieux Criss.
