THE MADONNA PAINTER by Michel Marc Bouchard, directed by Eda Holmes (Factory Theatre, 125 Bathurst). Runs to December 13, Tuesday-Saturday 8 pm, matinee Sunday 2 pm. Pwyc-$35. 416-504-9971. See listing. Rating: NNNN
The pursuit of beauty – physical, spiritual, sexual – charges Michel Marc Bouchard’s The Madonna Painter. It’s a quest that unfolds in a fascinating, ultimately disturbing manner.
In a Quebec village in 1918, a newly arrived priest (Marc Bendavid) tries to stave off the impending, deadly Spanish flu by having an artist (Juan Chioran) paint a triptych featuring an ascending Madonna, financed by the local doctor (Brian Dooley).
They hold a contest to choose which village virgin, all named Mary, will model for the Virgin. The result unleashes new tensions in a community where everyone already lives by their unusual fixations.
Mary Louise (Nicola Correia-Damude) reads people’s characters from their bedsheets, Mary Frances (Miranda Edwards) lusts after British deserters, naive Mary Anne (Shannon Taylor) isn’t sure if the priest is angel or devil, Mary of the Secrets (Jenny Young) is the town’s sin eater for the dying, vomiting her tales into a field that’s turned barren.
Bouchard’s elevated language, translated by Linda Gaboriau, gives a heightened quality to characters’ emotions, further enhanced by director Eda Holmes. Rich performances add to the work’s intensity. Ordinary actions and thoughts appear brighter, more vivid in Bouchard’s version of magical realism.
The key journey here is that of the young, handsome priest, so dedicated to his mission that he doesn’t realize that blinkers keep him from his official work. Bendavid captures first the ecstasy and then the agony of the man, and he’s well supported by Young’s specially gifted Mary of the Secrets and Chioran’s seductive painter, seeking his own impossible El Dorado.
Sue Lepage’s atmospheric design fills the expanse of the Factory Mainspace, with echoes of imagery in the play – sheets, stars, trees, while Beth Kates’s lighting keeps much of the focus properly somber, as if we’ve stumbled into a church rather than a theatre. It’s one of the few times that I remember the golden proscenium arch, left over from Factory’s pre-theatre days, used as part of a set design.
jonkap@nowtoronto.com[rssbreak]
