The 6th Station - Veronica wipes the face of Jesus

It’s always a mix of excitement and nerves heading into tech and Q2Q. You suddenly realize you are in light when you thought you wouldn’t be seen, or you realize you’re completely in view when you thought you’d be having a bit of a break. You finally get to dive into the world with both feet and see how the waters feel.

The hope is that all the work that has come before will finally make sense. Costumes, lights and sound fill in the blanks and question marks. There is no denying that this play lives in a surreal world, and being placed in that world allows the actors to take the next step towards an audience.

Suddenly a scene late in the play that is set in the sanctuary of the church has a lot more weight and poignancy. The end of the play is chilling and beautiful as you knew it should be.

We’re heading towards the point where the actors are in the driver’s seat and all we can do is sit back and watch and hope they can keep it on the track.

Veritas Icon... the true image...

We finally get to see how The Madonna Painter looks, sounds and breathes in the space.

The 5th Station - Simon of Cyrene carries the cross

It takes a lot of people to tell a story in the theatrical setting. Directors, actors, and stage management are on the front lines. But they are not alone in setting the stage.

SUE LEPAGE has designed the sets and costumes . She accomplished the great feat of providing a playing space that incorporates the natural architecture of the Factory theatre and then expanded upon it. She provides enough elements to suggest our different locations without being so literal that it limits the actors. We are in a village set in the rural Quebec of 1918, yet we're also always in a slightly distorted version of nature itself.

The job of taking all this one step further into the realm of Michel Marc Bouchard's heightened and fantastical world falls to the lighting designer BETH KATES. Blending the real and the surreal makes for beatiful images. A creepy forest setting on a fall evening comes to life, as does the altar and sanctuary of a medieval church.

The final element of design is provided by Reza Jacobs. In a play filled with images and metaphors of nature Reza decided to keep the sound itself all natural in its root. Winds, coughing, breathing, and supernatural drones were all created using the actors voices as a base. Taking influences from renaissance music, liturgical music, and folk songs of turn of the century Quebec he also created original music to help establish the world and tone of our story and to heighten our reality even further.

The Madonna Painter is very fortunate to have the synthesis of all these creative juices flowing through its veins.

The 4th Station - Jesus Meets his Mother

Over the course of rehearsals we have been lucky enough to have access to the writer of our play - Michel Marc Bouchard.

Questions of translation, obscure references, or possibly desired line changes are only an email away. Especially when approaching new works this is at the very least a huge boon, or at most, an absolute necessity. While The Madonna Painter has been performed before, this is the first time in English. It's also the first time for this particular incarnation of the script. This is the closest to the North American style narrative, whereas the original script was written and performed in Europe. Where theatre that has largely diverged from the narrative style.

Michel Marc was with us in rehearsals for three days. In no time you realize he is a storyteller to the core. Not only does he provide invaluable insight into the world, characters and relationships, but he is also very keen to encourage and accept the instincts and input of all those invloved. The actors are provided with a freedom to explore. A freedom that helps to feel the play and the characters as living breathing entities. As real and tangible as they are extreme in the desires and actions!

The 3rd Station - Jesus falls the first time

We’ve been working for 2 weeks now. Jumping into the language and the world of Michel Marc Bouchard’s rural Quebec of 1918.

The actors are discovering that each of their characters has an overwhelming desire that propels them forward. Both individually and collectively, the desires turn out to be the instrument of their demise. Interestingly enough, as the characters become more real, the story becomes more surreal.

Coughing rattles throughout the rehearsal hall.

Either our actors are overly ‘method’ or we’ve encountered a very strange coincidence. In a play filled with the ominous threat of the Spanish flu our cast has fallen sick. Stay home? Or come to rehearsal? Ginseng. Hand sanitizer. Cold formula tea. To get the flu shot or not to get the flu shot. That is the question.

Marc Bendavid who plays the Young Priest in the play has a passage that echoes in the air.

They didn’t come. Hardly a soul came to see us set God’s house afloat. It’s because of the flu… People are afraid of gatherings.

Fear is powerful.

I should do some research.

It seems for the actors their research is all around

Fear is indeed powerful.

CO

The 2nd Station - Jesus is given his Cross

One might say that November 19 is the cross to bear for the cast of The Madonna Painter will. Ready or not… the date will come… and the show will open. Somehow they will arrive at that destination with the rehearsal process being their journey towards it.

So how do I convey the excitement of seeing these actors give in to this play and discover it without giving anything away? Well, I suppose that is my own personal cross to bear in this scenario.

The cast dove into the material from the first read through. This metaphoric and imagistic play suddenly had life, and humour. More humour than I would have imagined. Each person in the cast is a unique and vibrant colour to be added to this production.

After the read through I turned to Eda and said “This is great casting”.

And so began the journey!

CO

The Madonna Painter - Blog #1

This week saw the beginning of rehearsals for the first english production of Michel Marc Bouchard's play The Madonna Painter.

Where to begin? Always the question to precede all others. Before we can even begin to find the answers we need to know what questions to ask.

I suppose a natural question may be - "Who is the person writing this blog, and what enables them to comment on the show?". Easy questions are usually best to get out of the way. My name is Cory O'Brien, and I have the fortunate opportunity to be in the room, and in the meetings for this production as assistant director to Eda Holmes. Perhaps it gives me a uniquely voyeuristic view of the process. Intimately involved, and yet with none of the pressures of being onstage or being responsible for decisions being made offstage.

So what exactly is The Madonna Painter about? It's a play set in a rural Quebec village in 1918 about a young priest who comes to town and commissions a fresco of the Madonna to be painted for the towns church. The play is steeped in imagery and metaphor with a backdrop of WWI going on and the Spanish flu spreading. It's a play about French Catholics and their relationships to God and their church. On the very first day we wondered aloud about this plays connection and relevance to the events of today. With fears of H1N1 and announcements by the Pope that the Catholic church was going to be accepting disenfranchised (and married) anglicans into its ranks we realized that there is great resonance between these people in their time and place and ourselves today.

Interestingly enough the play is laid out in 12 tableaus with a prologue and an epilogue. With writing laden by metaphor it is hard to shut out the echo of 14 individual episodes of this play to the 14 stations of the cross.

Station #1 - Jesus is condemned to death

... and the cast and creative team are given the task of taking on, dissecting, and presenting this play.

CO

The Madonna Painter - World Premiere - English Translation

THE MADONNA PAINTER
written by Michel Marc Bouchard
translated by Linda Gaboriau
directed by Eda Holmes

In order to protect his parish from the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic, a Quebec priest commissions an Italian painter to create a fresco dedicated to the Virgin Mary with consequences both comic and cataclysmic. An exquisite parable from one of Canada’s most loved playwrights.

Starring

MARC BENDAVID, JUAN CHIORAN

NICOLA CORREIA-DAMUDE, BRIAN DOOLEY

MIRANDA EDWARDS, SHANNON TAYLOR &

JENNY YOUNG

Set & Costume Design by SUE LEPAGE

Lighting Design by BETH KATES

Original Music & Sound Design by REZA JACOBS

Stage Management by MARINDA DE BEER

November 14 - December 19, 2009

Factory Theatre Mainspace

125 Bathurst Street (at Adelaide)

To buy tickets or for more information visit: http://www.factorytheatre.ca/