Double-spaced Theatre’s Heavy Drama

  New Montreal theatre company Double-spaced Theatre is well named. The drama theory-conscious company is fascinated by the dualities that co-exist and conflict in performance. In keeping with its mission, the company takes on Mick Gordon’s Bea, a study on the limits of empathy around the issue of assisted suicide. Using humour rather than sermonizing, […]


 

New Montreal theatre company Double-spaced Theatre is well named. The drama theory-conscious company is fascinated by the dualities that co-exist and conflict in performance. In keeping with its mission, the company takes on Mick Gordon’s Bea, a study on the limits of empathy around the issue of assisted suicide. Using humour rather than sermonizing, the play invites audience members to both watch and participate in the production as they grapple with their own ambivalence.

At issue is 25-year-old Bea, played by Mara Lazaris. Even though she has spent eight years paralyzed in bed with an unnamed illness, Bea is anything but a stereotypical invalid. The play gives us a privileged view inside Bea’s imaginative and active mind. She enacts her own music videos and lusts after her metrosexual caregiver (Adam Capriolo). However, we are painfully aware that she is a prisoner to her body, reliant on others for all her physical needs. As the play begins, Bea manipulates her caregiver to compose a letter on her behalf, asking for her mother’s assistance in committing suicide.

The audience shouldn’t be worried that they’re in for a night of guilt-rich moralizing. “The play is much less about the ethical issue of assisted suicide than about not judging the people involved,” says director and Double-spaced founder Michèle Robinson. “People want judgment. Think about it — in legislature, people go to court looking to be judged. They want things black or white. The play shows us how impossible it is to judge the situation.”

What this means is that Robinson doesn’t want her audiences to be passive observers. Instead, she provides the audience with its own role in the production: as witness to a situation. “The show operates on a meta-theatrical level,” she says, “By participating as a witness, the audience loses the ability to judge the situation.”

Allowing the audience to experience a greater role as part of the overall production is key to Robinson. “Theatre is not just as mere entertainment, but as a whole piece,” she says, “I want people to think about the entity of the performance, not just the subject matter.”

Seem heady? Drama theory lies at the heart of the new company. Double-spaced takes its name from the simultaneous dualities that exist in performance. As Robinson puts it, “There are all these double spaces at once — the actor on stage and the character on stage, the audience and the stage. There are many double spaces occupied in theatre.” But theory isn’t the only thing informing the company. “I also want this company to be an opportunity for everyone involved to have a taste of a professional career.”

Robinson sees theory-based performance as part of a trend to improve upon the status quo. “There is a barrier that prevents young people from wanting to see a live show on stage. Right now the mainstream is impeding creation. It’s too comfortable. But there is a step happening right now in the Montreal theatre scene towards something totally new, something that a much younger audience and a much more inclusive audience wants. The machinery is there to let that happen.”

Robinson cites in particular productions from the FTA (Festival TransAmériques). “Their shows are both international and French Canadian. They don’t rely on traditional processes; they go for the performance value of a piece. They show what is going to be mainstream in 10 years.”

Theory aside, Bea is unlikely to be a dry, academic piece of theatre. “There’s a sexy vibe in the show,” Robinson says. “All characters are multi-layered and hilarious. They put themselves in embarrassing situations but are clever at the same time.” ■

Bea runs from September 12 – 15 at the Conservatoire D’Art Dramatique Théâtre Rouge. Tickets can be purchased online.

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