The Vancouver premiere of Michel Bouchard’s newest creation navigates itself somewhere between medieval mysticism, Canada’s Next Top Model, and a Requiem Mass. By all other accounts, it’s a sort of Catholic peepshow—an oblique view into the simultaneous ecstasy and brutality of the religious aesthetic. From any angle, this play deserves to be a sell-out success—and with guaranteed, albeit relevant, nudity, I fear this will be the case.
The Madonna Painter¸ a dramatization of one small town’s reaction to the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic, sees four young girls, all named Mary, vying to be the muse of a newly commissioned—and potentially medicinal—fresco of the Madonna. Yet despite the omnipresence of beauty’s theme, the play is scarred by a series of dark brushstrokes. Amputations, obsessional and abusive loves, self-flagellation, unwanted pregnancy and the coughing of blood—form a discordant parallel to the young priest’s naive expedition for artistic perfection. In this way, the play is not only a criticism of the Church, and its dichotomy of institutional splendour and personal mortification, but a dramatic representation of this dichotomy. Bouchard, therefore, seems to embrace that which he so vehemently, and eloquently, protests. Craig Holzchuh captures these oscillations between iconophilia and iconophobia with an almost operatic flare.
Claudia Cantoral’s stage design was transporting. A greyishly ascetic stone altar, and the transformation of audience seating into mock wooden pews, was an inspired conspiracy to resurrect the memories of my Catholic schooldays.
The four Marys were a delightful coven of contestants, with Hesselgrave, Quintana, Kozicki and Chenosky exploring the idiosyncrasies of each character with a good deal of panache. I think Meaghan Chenosky deserves singular praise for her ability to carry the shades of torment, timidity, attraction and madness upon Mary of the Secret’s rich palette. Claire Hesselgrave held one of the few purely comic roles, and captured the wonder of a woman who reads soiled bedhseets like crystal balls more convincingly than one might imagine. Jameson Parker had an easier type to follow as Alessandro, the brooding artist trapped somewhere between his loins and self-loathing. Though there was less chemistry between him and Chenosky than one would have hoped, his language work, with the assistance of Susan Bertola, was bellissomo. Italian skipped off his tongue, with a certain archaic syncopation, without delivering the audience to some late-night deli. It was even better when he was angry.
Eric Freilich’s portrayal of the youthful cleric is wonderfully consistent, only at times leaning towards vanilla. Freilich’s understated representation of the priest works beautifully against the ensemble of outlandishly bold characters, but perhaps less so during monologue.
And yet it was the play’s darkest character, the doctor (Ben Whipple), a throwback to Renaissance anatomical theatre, who for me was the most satisfying. This butcher/patron/philosopher/latent homosexual/psychopath drunkard is a kaleidoscope on legs, and a surprising source for much of the drama’s lightness, as well as its depths. Whipple deals well with a rather unsatisfactory conclusion to his plotline, tracing the haunted existence of the physician without becoming the Sweeney Todd of Quebec.
Overall, the Madonna Painter is a hypnotically exquisite experience, which examines the powerful and destructive contradictions which make us human.
UBC Theatre’s the Madonna Painter runs through November 20. Please see theatre.ubc.ca for more information.
(+4 rating, 2 votes)
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