Volume 17 Issue 8 - May 2012

SPECIALENSEMBLESTUDIOPERFORMANCESEMELEHANDELALL TICKETS $22 AND $55Wednesday, May 23, 20127:30 P.M.coc.ca 416-363-8231PresentingSponsorof SURTITLESBroadcastSponsorOfficial AutomotiveSponsorSpring SeasonSupported bySemeleProductionSponsorEnsemble StudioPerformance SponsorOfficial MediaSponsorsA scene from Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie’s Semele, 2009. Photo: Karl ForsterCreative: EndeavourAIDS, falls for Mimi, a night-club dancer with a habit for cocaine.Maureen, the ex-lover of Roger’s roommate, Mark (a film-maker),stakes out a love-hate relationship with her new amour, Joanne, anerstwhile lawyer. Tom Collins, a gay anarchist and sometime collegeprofessor, picks up with Angel, a flamboyant drag-queen,also living with AIDS, who teaches him totrust. More important than the characters’individual lives is the community they helpcreate — one where the incessant demand to“pay the rent” signifies the crises that threatenlove and creativity. “Seasons of Love,” thesong that opens Act Two (and the show’s onebone fide hit), is a paean to survival in a worldthat frequently condemns love as wrong, sex asdangerous, and art as frivolous, if not decadent.Rejecting the costs of social and artistic approbation,the characters forge their bonds withouta belief in tomorrow. Together, they celebrate thepresent which, for some of them, is all they willever know.Jacob MacInnis tells me that Lezlie Wade, thedirector of Sheridan’s Rent, conceived the productionto foreground community. “For her, the cast isa family,” he says — a large one, in that it numbers32. “Everyone has a story-line with which to buildtheir character. This isn’t a ‘leads plus ensemble’production; everyone takes the final bow together.”The approach suits a show that offers “a snap-shotof an important moment in American history,” asMacInnis puts it, a time when artists “cried out forpeople to open their eyes to what was happening all around them.”He pauses, as if considering how to continue. “A group of youngartists struggles to leave something behind. What will it be? At theend of the show, they know. It will be love.” He pauses again, thengets personal. “I found a lot of myself in Tom Collins …”Also opening mid-month is From the House of Mirth, anotheradaptation of a famous work — in this case, a novel by celebratedAmerican author, Edith Wharton, first published in 1905. UnlikeTheatre Sheridan’s production of Rent, this show is created andperformed by some of Canada’s best-known, senior artists, workingunder the auspices of Coleman Lemieux & Compagnie (CLC), oneof the country’s most respected dance initiatives. Founded in 2000by Bill Coleman and Laurence Lemieux, pre-eminent choreographersand dancers, CLC creates intimate, small-scale performances,as well as spectacular stage shows, that feature some of Canada’sgreatest dancers. This new presentation qualifies as both.From the House of Mirth is a music/dance/theatre collaborationwith an original score by Rodney Sharman, libretto by Alex Poch-Goldin, and choreography by James Kudelka, the CLC’s residentchoreographer and director of the show. Kudelka stresses that thisversion of Wharton’s story evolves “not as a ballet, not as an opera,and not as a sung play,” but as all three, with each form picking upthe narrative according to the emotional and intellectual demands ofthe moment. Four male singers take the stage, along with four dancers,all female. Only the male characters use songs to tell the story.The female characters remain silent, danced by Victoria Bertram,Claudia Moore, Christianne Ullmark and Laurence Lemieux whoplays the lead character, Lily Bart. The four singers — Scott Belluz(countertenor), Graham Thomson (tenor), Alex Dobson (bassbaritone)and Geoffrey Sirret (baritone) — like the dancers, are accompaniedby a five-piece chamber orchestra of piano, harmonium,harp, violin and cello, under the direction of John Hess.Despite its substantial cast, From the House of Mirth recalls thesalon evenings of Wharton’s time — genteel soirées staged in intimatevenues, often private parlours. The approach fits the Citadel, thevenue CLC now calls home. The performance space is housed ina three-storey building erected in 1912 at the base of Regent Park,formerly owned by The Salvation Army and renovated by CLCduring the past few years. A state-of-the-art dance studio that seatsan audience of 60, the Citadel’s intimacy fits Kudelka’s reimagining16 thewholenote.com May 1 – June 7, 2012