Musings on the Orphan Muses

[Richard Sutherland]

A mini-report on Touchstone Theatre's production of the Orphan Muses (Les
Muses Orphelines) by Michel Marc Bouchard (translated into English by Linda
Gaboriau). At the Firehall Theatre until Mar. 31.
 
For the last few years, what I will loosely call Vancouver's theatre elite
appear to have been smitten by a case of Quebecois chic. Plays, principally
by Bouchard and Lepage, have not only regularly graced the Vancouver theatre
scene, but have been reverently treated, by critics and knowledgeable
theatre people alike, as droppings from some ethereal sky--so far above and
beyond anything local or even national English-speaking playwrights could
possibly offer as to be laughable. Of course I'm generalizing outrageously,
but from where I sit, I sometimes wonder if what we aren't witnessing a
classic English Canadian inferiority complex--if its from somewhere else, it
must be better.
 
Not that Vancouver's reverencing of Quebecois plays doesn't have some
legitimate basis. Bouchard & Lepage are interesting, controversial, etc.,
only that I find the process of hagiography interesting. For a time it was
American, or European--now its Quebecois.
 
I found the Orphan Muses an interesting play, although I wish it had been
better acted. The production looked as though it could have used at least an
extra two weeks of rehearsal (but then I feel that way about most
productions in English Canada--the standard three-week schedule dictated by
Equity is ridiculous). A dysfunctional family with the now standard
gender-bending issues, I nevertheless did not feel what must have been the
acute pain of their dysfunction as much as I felt I should have. Perhaps it
had something to do with the overly-realistic style of acting that was used.
I'd love to see the play in the original French, as I suspect that
Bouchard's style is an elusive one. The most powerful moment in the play
occurred when they are all recalling the dance that their mother attended
with her lover. The cast sang and danced "La Paloma" to great emotional
effect. The ending of the play I guessed very quickly. Was I supposed to?
I'm not sure, but I think I was supposed to be surprised.
 
Recalling Jen Harvie's recent article in TRIC about Tremblay, I also
wondered about the diplacing effect of seeing a play in translation which
has such a strong regional setting. I kept trying to imagine what it must be
like for a resident of the Saguenay to see the play. Issues such as lent,
abortion, cross-dressing, the flouting of strongly-entrenched local customs,
while not irrelevent to a Vancouver audience, nevertheless are seen as
through a looking -glass.
 
My, how I do ramble on. I must go and do my domestic chares. OK--I liked the
play. I just didn't (don't) think it rates the adulation that some of our
local reviewers showered on it.
 
Richard (promising to be briefer next time)