• Home
  • About
    • alt.theatre magazine
    • The Team
    • Our Publisher
  • Read
    • Current & Back Issues
    • Theatre Reviews
    • Subscribe, renew or gift
  • Participate
    • Support
    • Advertise
    • Contribute
  • News & Views
  • Contact

info@alttheatre.ca

   Subscriber's Login

Menu
0

No products in the cart.

  • Home
  • About
    • alt.theatre magazine
    • The Team
    • Our Publisher
  • Read
    • Current & Back Issues
    • Theatre Reviews
    • Subscribe, renew or gift
  • Participate
    • Support
    • Advertise
    • Contribute
  • News & Views
  • Contact

REVIEW: ANGÉLIQUE Takes Flight Out of the Attics of National Remembrance

  • Home
  • REVIEW: ANGÉLIQUE...

REVIEW: ANGÉLIQUE Takes Flight Out of the Attics of National Remembrance

CategoriesTheatre Reviews

alt.theatre

April 17, 2019

20

Jenny Brizard and Karl Graboshas in ANGÉLIQUE. Photo by Andrew Alexander.

Toronto, Ontario
Asheda Dwyer
reviews Black Theatre Workshop and Tableau D’Hôte Theatre’s co-production of Lorena Gale’s 
ANGÉLIQUE, presented in its Toronto premiere by Factory and Obsidian Theatre:

Angélique is an indictment and an overruling. It denies the voyeurism of trauma-pornography obscuring the national archives. Lorena Gale, the Canadian actress, playwright, and theatre director who wrote the award-winning play, has been confined to the attics of this remembrance for a lengthy sentence.

The reappearance of this masterwork is evidence of this, in the first touring of its kind in over two decades. Angélique was first produced by The Alberta Theatre Projects as part of its annual playRites Festival of New Canadian Plays in 1998. Since late 2018, Ottawa and Montreal have both witnessed restaging of Angélique, with Toronto as its third stop.

The small stature of Jenny Brizard simulates Angélique with an erupting-fierceness. Consistent to felsic lava forming igneous rock, Brizard endows Angélique with extended ontological range—from the icy resolution of her frequent “oui monsieur” to skittish enthusiasm with her lover Claude (played with a cunning nimbleness by Olivier Lamarche). The remainder of the cast is embroiled in its own set of calamities pressurized by her presence.

The marriage between Francois, played by Karl Graboshas, and France Rolland, as Therese, interpolate the aridity of upper class marriage, while the suppressed union between Cesar (Omari Newton) and Manon (PJ Prudat) is marked by a presence of denial. The colonial-comicality of Ignace, played by Chip Chuipka, is exaggerated through the lofty egoisms that animate settler-masculinity globally.

The directorial precision of Mike Payette—who previously served the Black Theatre Workshop, Canada’s longest-running Black Theatre Company, as assistant Artistic Director—retains the fiery-wit of Gale, while rigorously leading an astute production. The depictions of Black-Indigenous solidarity, in particular, hold a sustained, cinematic resonance, awaiting further representation of the recorded intra-relations between these communities.

Sounding the name Marie-Joseph Angélique at the 1734 trial conjures the spectacle of a brutalizing spectre, shaped by the profiteering of colonial judgment-termed-justice. Angélique is an interpretive tack into this precedent, and her enigmatic life the subjective-centre of its underside. Angélique’s gravitational pull stirs audiences to labour through the existential paradoxes marking the doubly denied personhood of black womanhood. No matter where you sit in the audience, you are edging this negation, in the form of the anterior view of the gallows. This sight of imminent death remains one of the many possibilities mandated by the laws of The Code Noir.

Most of the production’s lighting comes from above the stage, where the ensemble co-navigates spatial limitations with auditory knowledge. These transmissions remind us that cultures of sound formed part of the commodities stolen, sold, and shipped as cargo across the Atlantic.

Designed by Eo Sharp, who is also responsible for the production’s anachronistic costuming, Angélique is contained within the pathways of a harrowing stage, erected as semi-enclosure with a multi-use, rectangular platform. Coloured evenly in rich, mahogany brown, the built-form of the gallows competes with the surrounding darkness, swallowing the absence of light, of space, of being.

Yet, Gale’s Angelique defies the deaths of-and-beyond her time with a piercing light, in full flight.


Asheda Dwyer is an emerging cultural critic, based in Toronto. She is an alumna of the inaugural cohort of the Performance Criticism Training Program (PCTP) with Generator. Her writing has appeared in Caribbean Quarterly, Shameless Magazine, Now Magazine, and The Ethnic Aisle.

 

 

 

 

Tags: alt.theatre magazine, ANGÉLIQUE, Asheda Dwyer, Black Canadian history, Black Theatre Workshop, Chip Chuipka, Code Noir, Factory Theatre, France Rolland, Jenny Brizard, Karl Graboshas, Lorena Gale, Mike Payette, Obsidian Theatre, Omari Newton, PJ Prudat, Tableau D’Hôte Theatre

Related Post

MAY 19, 2020

Process Not Product

00

SEPTEMBER 26, 2019

Review of The Tashme Project...

00

SEPTEMBER 26, 2019

Embedding Criticism:

00

SEPTEMBER 26, 2019

“Why on earth are you...

00

JUNE 26, 2019

REVIEW: Toronto Circus Riot

Toronto, ON Christine H. Tran reviews LookUp Theatre’s Toronto Circus...

00

MAY 26, 2019

REVIEW: Éclosion

Montréal, Québec Megan Gnanasihamany reviews Tangente Danse’s Éclosion,...

00

Leave a Comments Cancel Reply

Recent Posts

  • Process Not Product

    May 19, 2020
  • The Clown: A Figure of Resilience and Community

    April 24, 2020
  • Resisting Extractivism, Performing Opposition

    January 14, 2020
  • Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Canadian Theatre Here and Now: Part Two

    January 6, 2020
  • PACTCon 2019 Keynote by Marcus Youssef: A Work in Progress

    January 6, 2020

Categories

  • Archive Content
  • Bonus Material
  • Editorials
  • Issue Preview
  • News & Views
  • Theatre Reviews
  • Uncategorized

Archives

  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • February 2017
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • May 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • December 2014
  • August 2014
  • April 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • September 2013
  • July 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • January 2013
  • November 2012
  • June 2012
  • March 2012
  • December 2011
  • September 2011
  • June 2011
  • March 2011
  • December 2010
  • September 2010
  • June 2010
  • March 2010
  • December 2009
  • September 2009
  • June 2009
  • March 2009
  • December 2008
  • September 2008
  • June 2008
  • February 2008
  • May 2007
  • February 2007
  • November 2006
  • May 2006
  • January 2006
  • March 2005
  • December 2004
  • July 2004
  • April 2004
  • June 2003
  • January 2003
  • June 2002
  • June 2001
  • October 2000
  • June 1999
  • November 1998
  • June 1998

Tags

alt.theatre alt.theatre magazine Alt. Vol. 1.2 Alt Vol. 12.4 Alt Vol 1.1 Asian Canadian theatre Buddies in Bad Times Cahoots Theatre Canadian Theatre Chinese Canadian theatre Crow's Theatre Cultural diversity diversity diversity and the stage diversity in theatre embedded criticism Factory Theatre feminist theatre I Call Myself Princess immersive theatre immigrant theatre indie theatre Indigenous theatre Jani Lauzon Marjorie Chan Montreal Fringe Montreal theatre Native Earth Performing Arts opera Paper Canoe Projects play translation PuSh Festival PuSh International Performing Arts Festival queer theatre Robyn Grant-Moran Sarah Culkin Shakespeare Shelley Liebembuk SummerWorks 2018 SummerWorks Festival Summerworks Lab Toronto Toronto Theatre Vol 15.2 Willow White

CONTACT

460 Ste-Catherine West #916,
Montreal, Quebec,
Canada, H3B 1A7
Email: info@alttheatre.ca
Phone No: 1-514-848-0238
 

READ

Join readers around the world engaged in politics, cultural plurality, social activism, and the performing arts.

SUBSCRIBE
  • Current & Back Issues
  • Theatre Reviews
  • News & Views

SUPPORT

Keep this forum for critical discourse alive! Help us accomplish our mission:
  • donate
  • advertise
  • contribute

NEWSLETTER

Stay in the know. Subscribe to our newsletter.
[contact-form-7 404 "Not Found"]

© 2020 alt.theatre, All Rights Reserved.   |   Privacy Policy   |   Terms & Conditions