The room This hill is never truly silentwritten and directed by Gabriel Charlebois-Plante, was crowned best show on Monday at the Critics’ Awards, awarded by the Montreal section of the Quebec Theater Critics Association (AQCT).
This modern rereading of the myth of Sisyphus, a production by Création Dans la Chambre, stars Philippe Boutin, Amélie Dallaire, Papy Maurice Mbwiti and Élisabeth Smith. The creation stood out in particular for its stage set-up made up of five tonnes of rocks and a single lighting source.
This show captures with disturbing, even overwhelming, acuity the feelings of oppression, of inadequacy, of paralyzing helplessness, of inexorable captivity within a system with no escape which manages to make the individual their own executioner.
explained the AQCT in a press release.
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The playwright and director Gabriel Charlebois-Plante, with the actors Papy Maurice Mbwiti and Philippe Boutin
Photo: Creation Dans la Chambre Faebook Page / Émilie Lapointe
Royal wins the prize for best direction
In all, eight prizes were awarded Monday at L’Illusion, Montreal’s puppet theater, in addition to two non-category prizes. The prize for best original text was awarded to Pascale Brullemans for Homicide. This play, directed by Nini Bélanger, is freely inspired by a real news story: the murder by a young man of a stranger he met online.
Virginie Brunelle and Simon Traversy won the prize for best direction for Royalby Jean-Philippe Baril-Guérard, a critique of the performance society seen through the eyes of law students, during the race for internships.
L’AQCT pointed out the ambitious and convincing use of stage space, the skillful combination of choral narrativity and the individual journeys of the characters, the audacity of having opted for a cast made up of young graduates and the significant integration of dance and from physicality to an initially literary work
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Violette Chauveau brings Olivier Choinière’s play “The Last Cassette” alone on stage.
Photo: Threepenny Theater
Violette Chauveau won the prize for best female performance for her role in The last tapeby Olivier Choinière, a tribute to the director André Brassard, who died in 2022. Dany Boudreault won the equivalent among men for his monologue in Homicide.
Geneviève Lizotte won the prize for best designer for the decor ofHome affairsby Sophie Cadieux, Mélanie Demers and Frannie Holder. The prize for best show for young audiences was awarded to Hegemony by Maxime Monpérousse, while L.U.C.A.by Gregory Carnoli and Hervé Guerrisi, was crowned best show created outside Quebec.
The two special prizes outside categories were awarded to Tree, a whole world by Hélène Ducharme and The crossing of the century d’Alice Ronfard.
