Centaur Theatre Presents Outside the March's TERMINUS, Now thru Feb 15

Centaur Theatre presents the Quebec premiere of the Outside the March (OtM) production of Terminus by Irish playwright, Mark O'Rowe.

Directed by Mitchell Cushman, 2013's Siminovitch Prize protégé and Co-Artistic Director of OtM, one of Canada's leading site-specific theatre companies, the play garnered a slew of accolades when it premiered at Dublin's Abbey Theatre in 2007 and went on to win the 2008 Edinburgh Fringe First Award. OtM's Canadian premiere earned similar high praise, with both the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star giving it four stars. Cushman won the 2013 Toronto Theatre Critics Best Director Award while the play picked up Best Production and Best Design awards, and Victoria's Spotlight Critics' Choice awarded OtM the Best Production award for its run at the Belfry Theatre.

"We go, see the slo-mo ebb-and-flow of pub-spill; the mill, the babble, the rabble or wobbling waywards." - Terminus, Mark O'Rowe

Destinies intersect on a mystical night in this internationally acclaimed Irish drama. Three lost souls weave poetic, interlocking monologues of loneliness, violence and urban adventure into a vivid tapestry depicting Dublin's gritty underworld. Told in rhyming vernacular, their mesmerizing tales roam the city's busy streets, soar to the summit of an industrial crane and dive deep into the murky purgatory of Faustian predators, vengeful angels and lovesick demons. Fantastical, exhilarating and darkly funny, it is a bold and daring masterpiece of supreme horror and beauty.

OtM's Terminus has had a meteoric evolution, emerging initially as a surprise hit of Toronto's 2012 SummerWorks Festival where it sold out nightly. It grabbed the attention of David Mirvish who christened his first Off-Mirvish series with it in the opulent Royal Alexandra Theatre, though Cushman maintained the intimate experience by placing a 200-capacity audience on stage with the actors. Since then, as it's toured other Toronto venues as well as cities in BC and the Yukon, the play has undergone modifications that preserve the play's intensity yet suit black box theatres such as Centaur's.

Regarding the play's heightened language, Cushman (son of the National Post theatre critic, Robert Cushman) admitted, "It's Shakespearean in the way it uses language to take us through some very gruesome episodes. If you look at Titus Andronicus, Richard III or Macbeth, O'Rowe is following in the same tradition. If the language is beautiful enough, we will go places we might not otherwise want to go. The details play out in your head; the battleground is the imagination."

Centaur's Executive and Artistic Director, Roy Surette, caught the Off-Mirvish production. "I thought it was a beautiful blend of alternate and mainstream theatre for our audiences, which are pretty discerning and theatre-savvy. Something to challenge as well as entertain. These three disparate characters, sublimely written, whose stories begin at points of the compass light-years from one another, eventually converging on a single, fantastical moment; it's uniquely theatrical ... an urban epic!"

Influenced by Mamet, Pinter and fellow countryman Samuel Beckett, O'Rowe focuses on the dystopic underbelly of contemporary urban Ireland and is best known for the verbal pyrotechnics of his monologue plays; dark chronicles rich in spectacular imagery, of which Terminus is a prime example. American playwright Neil LaBute described O'Rowe's work as "big swirling tornadoes of beautiful words" and Sara Keating of the Irish Times wrote, "The content may occasionally be X-rated, but the human truth that underlies O'Rowe's characters is undeniable." Centaur's 'shocking' season slogan fits like a glove, as O'Rowe's own description of Terminus attests: "a fantasia of shocking events, appealing to the part of us that enjoys special effects. But you have to have something true and emotional to anchor that. Otherwise it's just spectacle."

The three curious characters, known simply as A, B and C, are brought to severe reality by a powerhouse cast. Sarah Dodd (seven-year Stratford Festival performer and two-time Dora winner) is A, a middle-aged mother with a heavy conscience; Ava Jane Markus (actor, musician and producer who has been with OtM's Terminus since its Canadian premiere) plays a young woman, B, looking for love in all the wrong places; and Adam Kenneth Wilson (stage, TV and film actor best known for his portrayal of Charles Manson in the Gemini-nominated Manson) alternately charms and repels as C, a prowling wannabe pop singer with a dark secret.

The award-winning design team is small in size but large in achievements with the minimalist, brooding set and evocative lighting by Nick Blais and seven-time Dora winner, Richard Feren, further enhancing the atmosphere through music and sound. Bryn McLeod, herself an actor and co-founder of the Halifax-born Wheelwright Theatre company, rounds out the team as Stage Manager.

The production plays previews January 20 & 21 and opens January 22, running Tuesday through Saturday at 8 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2 p.m. and Wednesday, February 4 and 11 at 1 p.m. Dark on Mondays. The show closes on February 15 at 2 p.m. Click here for more information.

 

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