Mainline Gala for Student Drama : Love, Identity, and Plato
Form of Flattery. Mainline Student Gala
Your correspondent recently had coffee with Laurent Pitre and Kenny Streule to talk about the Fifth Mainline Gala for Student Drama. Laurent, a second year student at Concordia’s playwright program, is working as a producer for this event, and promises an evening of groundbreaking student-run theatre. The gala will consist of three English-language plays completely put on by students from Dawson College and Concordia University.
The first one of the evening’s offerings, “Girl House”, is a one-woman show that explores themes of consent and liminality in relation to the search of identity. A big part of this piece will be set design, and I have good word that this will include a giant-sized dollhouse on the stage. “How I Show to Love”, the second play, takes place at a coffee shop, where Kenneth finds pleasure in subtly exerting power over his costumers. This curious premise will give the audience a chance to mull over questions of loss, helplessness and the pleasures of being a bad person.
Form of Flattery. Mainline Student Gala
The evening’s final production is titled “Form of Flattery’ and takes place during Ancient Greece’s golden age of philosophy. With characters like Athena, Plato and Socrates on stage, this play will offer a combination of classical theatre and contemporary sensibilities. It will also those philosophically-oriented theatre goers with some musings about Plato’s ideas and Greek philosophy.
Kenny, the Mainline’s liaison for this event, talked about the importance of giving students the chance to stage a play outside of school and offer them their first “official” experience. The feedback students will get from having a freshly-written play on stage is valuable not only to writer, but also directors, actors and all the backstage staff that are part of the final product. The Mainline’s event is all the more interesting given that all the elements of these plays will be the work of students, from stage design to illumination. This will be a great chance for theatre audiences to enjoy some good pieces. This is the fifth edition of the Mainline’s student-run extravaganza, with many of its previous participants spring boarding into Montreal’s local indie scene.
The Mainline Gala continues from March 5 – March 8 at the Mainline Theatre. Click here for showtimes and tickets.
