Whoa, the stars were aligned at the Press opening of Hosanna. Not only was the the former artistic and executive director here, Roy Surette, who planned this production for Centaur, but the new artistic director, Eda Holmes, who was thrilled to be presenting it – but also – Maurice Podbrey (and wife Elsa), the founding artistic and executive director – AND – the author, Michel Tremblay. All were delighted with the show, as well they should be.

Writing this in 1971, Michel Tremblay was far ahead of the general population’s knowledge of the LGBTQ+ community. In the play he speaks to the gender roles imposed by society at that time, and hope for eventual self-acceptance. Holmes refers to  this in her Director’s notes: “the narrow structures of gender and identity that were available at the time”. We have to applaud his bravery.

Eloi Archambeaudoin revisits his Table D’Hote Theatre role as Hosanna, hairdresser during the day to drag queen at night. The grander Centaur stage was a tabla rosa for lighting designer Audrey-Anne Bouchard to transform Claude Lemieux-rural boy into Hosanna-drag queen, using the uncomfortable giant flashing neon sign “BEAUBIEN” (tip of the hat to Montreal), to the David statue spotlight and the overall red light district red room.

The play reveals the painful sparring between the diva and her boyfriend, Cuirette playing hardass-leather- dude style by Davide Chiazzese. He fights back at her by putting the uncomfortable problems in her face, “You go to bed with makeup on because you don’t want to see who’s underneath”.  He knows Hosanna is stuck “between a woman’s face and a man’s body”. She knows how to spit back, referring to his job as washer woman by day and cowboy by night.

Who in this world doesn’t sometimes wish they could dress up and be someone else? Hosanna hits on this when she proclaims, “I know everyone who is gay in Montreal – even when they don’t know it themselves”.

Tremblay shows us how we all work on our outsides but really need to be working on our insides. Director Mike Payette notes what a timeless story this really is, because all couples have to face “their notions of love, and how they can exist together”.

Location 453 St-Francois-Xavier
corner: Notre-Dame
Tel: 514-288-3161
Dates: til June 10
Prices: $38.50 – $51.75 (includes deals for students and seniors)
www.centaurtheatre.com
Metro: Place d’Armes

photos by  Andrée Lanthier

Premium Retail Group is having a warehouse sale featuring PUMA, one of the leading athletic footwear, apparel and accessories companies in the world. PUMA offers performance and sport-inspired lifestyle products and for 5 days only you can save up to 80%  on trendy and versatile footwear, apparel and accessories.

Hurry in and get great discounts on this popular global sporting lifestyle brand. Puma has a style to fit your style.

Location: 4344 Garand, VSL H4R 2A3
corner: Pomba
Dates: May 9 – May 13
Hours: Wed 11-7, Thurs & Fri 11-9, Sat & Sun 11-5
www.premiumretailgroup.com

Our Prime Minister took the feminist lead when he packed his cabinet with 51% women. Now the Centaur Theatre with this production, Successions, has stacked the female deck with: a female playwright – Michaela Di Cesare, a female director – Tamara Brown, a female set and costume designer – Dianai Uribe, a female lighting designer – Audrey-Anne Bouchard, and even a female “fight co-ordinator”  Anita Nittoly. This team of girls is a real anomaly,  since  this play is very much about brotherhood.

Playwright Michaela Di Cesare admits that she attributes her active imagination to her Only Child Syndrome. Usually authors are told to “write what you know”, but Di Cesare chose to write this play about siblings – and male siblings at that. Enzo and Anthony are St-Leonard Italians who have just lost their mother and inherited a dilapidated junk-filled house (well-imagined by Tamara Brown, the set designer).

Instead of the usual “who did Mommy like best”, this play is more about who despised whom the most.

Di Cesare notes that “When both parents die, the family is cut off from the head”. Like a chicken without a head, these two brothers, David Chiazzese as Enzo and Carlo Mestroni as Anthony, keep circling and attacking each other both mentally and physically. It is painful to watch the enormous hostility and resentment between them. The difference between the would-be plumber and the lawyer-politico wannabe is too huge a gap to bridge. While Anthony just wants to get out of the junky house (in more ways than one) and snarkily dismisses his brother with “my time is to me my most valuable possession”, Enzo retaliates with the biting, “Am I about to be lawyered?”.

Though deaths can bring love and forgiveness between siblings, we see little of it here. Even Enzo’s heavily pregnant fiancee Nat (Gita Miller) and Anthony’s upscale wife, Cristina (Tara Nicodemo) verbally shadow box around the guys as they butt heads.

The  fun part for Montrealers are the lines that place the play here in Montreal, like the people who “get hives if you go east of Frontenac” or saying food is healthy like bagels.

All of the actors proved Di Cesare’s  point, which was that siblings have the capacity to hurt one another because they know so well how to push each other’s buttons. And she then goes on to say, “What I find so interesting about siblings is that they are the only people who bear witness to your whole life.”

Location 453 St-Francois-Xavier
corner: Notre-Dame
Tel: 514-288-3161
Dates: til May 6
Prices: $37.50 – $51.75 (deals for students and seniors)
www.centaurtheatre.com
Metro: Place d’Armes

You can find the very best that Canada has to offer within Parks Canada parks and sites. When you visit, you learn the stories of where we came from and who we are, including the history, cultures and contributions of Indigenous Peoples.

The Minister of Environment and Climate Change and Minister responsible for Parks Canada, Catherine McKenna, along with Parks Canada’s Honourary Guide for Families, Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, announced that admission for youth 17 and under is free for all national parks, historic sites and marine conservation areas.

By making admission free for youth under 17, Canada is celebrating families and the importance of our protected areas. They are hoping that by connecting with nature, youth will gain a better understanding of our urgent need to not only protect it, but maintain it for future generations.

While youth will enjoy free admission beginning in 2018, Parks Canada is returning to fee-based admission for adults and seniors to national parks, historic sites and marine conservation areas, including lockage at historic canals. The 2018 Parks Canada Discovery Pass is now on sale and is a great value, providing access to these national treasures all year long.

The Parks Canada Discovery Pass is the ideal way to discover nature and connect with Canada’s history. For information on purchasing the 2018 Parks Canada Discovery Pass, please visit the Parks Canada website: http://www.pc.gc.ca

What can you say about a museum when the 7-year-old you are with stops in her tracks at the entrance because she’s in awe of what she sees? Imagine you are walking thru a video screen of Canadian nature: the aurora borealis, crystals, wheat fields or fire. The museum has been completely re-done, with only two of the all-time favorite exhibits remaining – the crazy kitchen (it’s still so fun watching the video monitor of “drunken” people trying to walk through) and those majestic steam locomotives.

Visiting with a group of kids with an age range of 4-13, all of them were entranced for over 5 hours. Even though it was a busy weekend day, it rarely felt crowded, since there were so many corners to get lost in. One you may not find was a favorite – go past those hulking locomotives and around a corner to look for the soundproof Sounds of Silence room. Nearby, behind those trains, are movable touchable displays called Sound by Design.

The 13-year old liked the wearable technology and how it made the great outdoors easier to enjoy. He got to test a hockey helmets ( you get to whack one with a hammer) and perused the development of beekeepers’ gloves.

At Into the Great Outdoors, I was entranced by the land-water car owned by a family who needed it to drive/float to their chalet on an island.  Though the Zoom room was noted for ages 0-8, all of the kids had fun there – especially on the climbing wall with its secret smells and in the wind tunnel. The 4 year-old was in there for hours. We even saw couples on dates walking around in there with silly grins on.

Medical sensations was scary to one of the young girls, but they enjoyed manipulating facial features and guessing what the colorful patterns were which were captured by microscopes and telescopes.

The Exploratek room is near the cafe. Here the kids can gets creative and build buildings, create tube tracks or work with a robot.  The museum helps you keep costs down by making sure there are tables and cozy couches if you want to bring your own lunch, We’d suggest you do this, sinces the line for hot food in the cafe  moved slowly. There was a good selection of healthy foods.

A few times a day there are live demonstrations – we got lucky and saw one on pyrotechnics, including a rocket firing. Three-Two-One blast-off to this interactive fun learning museum.

Location: Canada Science and Technology Museum, 1867 St Laurent Blvd, Ottawa, ON K1G 5A3
Telephone: 613-991-3044 or toll-free: 1-866-442-4416
Hours: May 1 to September 1: Open daily; September 2 to April 30: Closed Mondays
https://ingeniumcanada.org

Juke Box Canada/Alilo Canada has a unique concept of gift giving, because they personalize their products. If you give “The Lullaby Plush  a hug, he will sing a child’s name in a lullaby song. Available in English, French, Italian or Spanish,  the animal choices are very soft and cuddly, .

A personalized gift is a good idea for any occasion. you can buy singing alarm clocks,  MP3 players, CDs, CD ROMs, hard cover books, DVD’s and photo balloons.

Their best-selling and hugely popular gift is the ALILO Honey Bunny, which is a 4GB MP3 player, nightlight and voice recorder all-in-one. It is already preloaded with popular nursery rhymes and stories in English and French. You can also add and revise the content as you wish. You can order and download personalized songs which sing the child`s name (available in English, French, Italian and Spanish). With Honey Bunny, you can easily carry your child’s music everywhere you go. He is a soothing friend for babies and his soft, glowing ears are totally safe to bend, pinch and chew. Older children appreciate that they can download whatever content they like and have fun with the voice recorder.

Mornings will never be the same when your child (or anyone else) can wake up to his or her name being sung on wakeup song a Singing Alarm Clock. Start every day with a smile. You can also buy just the MP3 of the wake-up song or any other song on their site so that even teenagers or adults can download the song as a wake-up on their smartphones.

Other Entertaining Personalized Gifts:

– Personalized Music CDs: Children are thrilled to hear their name sung throughout each song. The music and lyrics are contagious. and can easily become a favorite and played often. Every name is recorded live by professional recording artists.

– Personalized DVD Movies: The child is the star of his very own movie so they will see their face in the animated, colorful scenes. There are several titles to choose from with funny story lines and amusing characters.

– Personalized Stories on CD-ROM: In Kids’ Story Books the story is read to your child while using him or her as the main character and he/she becomes the hero of every scene. At the click of the mouse the child makes the objects come to life as they speak, move and talk.

A child can read along with the printed text below every scene or choose to turn the narration off so he can read on his own. This enhances the reading skills at the child’s pace, since he chooses when to turn the page. When ordering, you get to choose: name, gender, ethnicity, eye and hair colour.

– Hard cover books: Capture a child’s attention and imagination as he/she becomes the star of his/her very own story. Many popular themes are available: Mother Goose, Santa, Spiderman and Sesame Street, to name a few.

– Personalized Photo Balloons: Any photo can be printed on both sides of balloons. They are cute to use as a centerpiece for a festive occasion. Amazingly, they last for years.

Juke Box Canada offers these special personalized gifts for any occasion: holidays, birthdays, back-to- school, or just because.

jukeboxcanada.com@gmail.com
Seasonal: Place Rosemere
Phone: 514-836-3113 or 514-762-0858
www.jukeboxcanada.com
http://jukeboxcanada.com/alilo-canada/
https://www.facebook.com/JukeBoxQuebec/

The Automobile Protection Association has given the thumbs up sign to The Car Inspector –  a gentleman who does mobile car inspections.

Wherever the car is that you are thinking of buying, in a driveway or on a lot, he comes to you and does a complete inspection, including an ultrasound of the body.

You might want to use this service to verify a car before warranty expiration, after a repair job (to make sure it was done properly), before purchasing a used car, before selling (either to reassure potential buyers or to see if it’s worthwhile changing cars), as a pre-trip checkup or just to reassure yourself that it’s free of safety or mechanical problems.

This mobile vehicle inspection is quite complete and here are some of the things that are verified:

– An electronic body verification, to determine if the vehicle has been repainted, involved in an accident or rebuilt covering the the body panels, windows, floor, frame and structure.
– The motor and transmission, steering, brake, air conditioning, and electrical systems
– The brake wear, tire wear, drive-shafts and differentials, as well as suspension and steering components
– Everything inside including all electrical and manual controls, switches, gauges and indicators as well as the odometer, to see if the indicated mileage corresponds with the condition and wear
– Finally a road test is done to check the handling, braking, transmission and instrument operation
– The inspection is done on site in about an hour, Monday to Friday and costs $120 (base price plus traveling)

Tel: 514-890-5000

JRC toy warehouse is  open to the public until Xmas with their toy liquidation sale. This is a great time to make a head start and cross off items on your holiday list on their incredible deals of up to 70% off on all kinds of toys.

Name brands from Alex Toys, Barbie, Crayola, Fisher-Price, Hasbro, Hot Wheels, Leap Frog, Lego, Little Tikes, Mattel, Mega Bloks, Melissa & Doug, Playskool, Spinmaster, Step 2, The Orb Factory and VTech.

Books are only $1 & up.

They accept debit, Visa Mastercard, but no cheques. There will be no exchanges or refunds, as all sales are final.

Location: 5589 Royalmount
corner: Chemin Devonshire
Metro: Station de la Savanne
Google Map: http://bit.ly/1RUJlsh
Tel: 514-342-6979
Times: Sat -Wed 10-5, Thurs & Fri 10-8 and Christmas Eve 10-3 (Oct closed Mon & tues)
www.jrctoys.com
email: info@jrctoys.com

Now that it’s getting cold and you’re staying inside more, it would be a good time to start a needle work project. You even have time to get it ready to gift it for the holidays so head to Jeannettes Needlecraft  Shoppe to start.

A gift done by hand is one that shows that you truly care. Your effort is displayed in each hand sewn stitch or stroke of your paint brush.

A quick gift idea: Try a  “stitch n’ zip” kit; These are ready to use eye glass cases, iPad cases, Kindle cases and tallis bags. The kits come pre-assembled. All you have to do is the needlepoint and then just zip it up and give it as a gift. You can have a tallis bag personalized with an embroidered Hebrew name too.

They also carry scarf yarns (Pirouette, Bohemian and Decor by Patons), to make the latest fashion accessory item as well as other low cost items that will tempt you to start those projects that you have being putting off.

If you want to start on a needlework project, here you can buy yarn and canvases. They can also upholster with needlepoint (especially chairs), finish cushions and mount tapestries.

Head to Jeannettes Needlecraft  Shoppe, a friendly family business and they will frame your special hand-made project, or a painting, lithograph, photograph or diploma at 15% off.

Happily helping you with your project has been the #1 reason people keep coming back to this shop for years and years.

Location: 5015 Coolbrook Ave., Montreal H3X 2K8 / Google Maps: http://bit.ly/24l8jon
corner:  Queen Mary Rd.
Tel: 514-486-2800
Hours: Mon-Fri 9:30-5, Sat 9:30-4
Metro: Station Snowdon
http://www.jeannettes.com/
e-mail: jeannettes@videotron.ca

Montrealers have hockey in their DNA, so it is easy to suggest that you head to the Centaur Theatre to see “Playing with Fire”, a must-see play about hockey – it’s even performed on a hockey rink!  Okay, it’s a synthetic one, but the star of this one-man show, Shaun Smyth, skates and acts the entire show in full hockey gear as NHL’er Theo Fleury. Now that’s something Habs fans can enjoy – even though he played for the Calgary Flames when they beat us for the Stanley cup in 1989.

Smyth (through the storytelling gift of author and playwright Kirstie McClellan Day) grips you from the last bars of “O, Canada” and takes you through every sweaty moment of his roller coaster life. She glides you in to the sad family life of a diminutive kid from Russell, Manitoba who, after skating, “took his time getting dressed cause I didn’t want to go home”-  to one of only 90 NHL players who have scored 50 goals in a season and then went on to win a Stanley cup and even a gold medal in the Olympics. For Fleury,  “sports was his salvation and his escape”.

The story is based on the autobiography of Theo Fleury, a book which spent a year on the Canadian bestseller list. His tortured past included the awfulness of a a coach (Graham James) sexually abusing him as a young teen. This led him to years of self-destruction, blowing 50 million dollars on addictions to booze, drugs, strippers and gambling.

To be fully prepared for this part, Shaun Smyth hired a hockey coach to make him a good enough player to meet the expectations of the NHLers he knew would come to see the show. He spent two years practicing, renting ice time and playing pick-up games. If that wasn’t hard enough, imagine skating and acting in a one-man show at the same time (and memorizing 7 different versions of it). He, like Fleury, was fearless playing both jobs.

Director Ron Jenkins, along with set and lighting designer  David Fraser, impossibly make the hockey rink slide into everything from an ambulance/hospital room to a hockey sweater cupboard or a firy inferno. The projections and videos by Corwin Ferguson really illustrate the narrative, whether showing hockey cards of players Fleury is referencing or news stories, prairie scenes or even Calgary “flames”.

A hometown sidebar is the “So You Think You Can Sing O, Canada” contest which was held before the play opened. Contestants submitted a demo, and each night of the show, “O, Canada” starts the performance, sung by a different Montrealer. Come and watch your neighbours trill.

Meeting Theo Fleury on opening night was a privilege. He has become an advocate for abuse victims, giving over 50 lectures a year – even in prisons which include child molesters (now that’s forgiveness!). Fleury said, “We all get addicted to something. We can get rid of stigma. We can all heal“.

Though the play showcased a superstar behaving badly, Theo Fleury the man is a double hero: physically he’s a hero, succeeding in the impossibly tough game of NHL hockey, but he’s also a mental hero who was courageous and strong enough to beat his demons too.

Location 453 St-Francois-Xavier
corner: Notre-Dame
Tel: 514-288-3161
Dates: til Oct 29
Prices: $38.50 – $51.75 (deals for students and seniors)
www.centaurtheatre.com
Metro: Place d’Armes