Michel Tremblay's Hosanna, Directed by Weyni Mengesha, Opens at Stratford Festival Aug. 10

By Kenneth Jones
10 Aug 2011

http://www.playbill.com/news/article/153507-Michel-Tremblays-Hosanna-Directed-by-Weyni-Mengesha-Opens-at-Stratford-Festival-Aug-10

Hosanna, Canadian playwright Michel Tremblay's play about a drag queen's search for his identity, opens Aug. 10 following previews from July 26 as part of the 2011 season at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Ontario.

It plays the intimate Studio Theatre, one of the festival's four venues. Weyni Mengesha, known for her work in Toronto, makes her Stratford directorial debut with the play by Montreal-born Tremblay, a major name in Canadian theatre (Les Belles-Sœurs, Bonjour, là, bonjour, Albertine in Five Times, For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again, The Real World?). Her cast includes Gareth Potter as Hosanna and Oliver Becker as Cuirette in a production billed as "raw, tragic and outrageously funny."

Hosanna: Stratford's revival feels dated 2 Stars
J. KELLY NESTRUCK
From Friday's Globe and Mail
Published Thursday, Aug. 11, 2011 5:41PM EDT

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/theatre/hosanna-stratfords-revival-feels-dated/article2127018/

I had a crisis of faith watching Hosanna at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. I've always thought of Quebec playwright Michel Tremblay's 1973 drama as a modern classic, but this time around I was left in doubt as to whether it's a play built to endure.

On the surface, director Weyni Mengesha's revival appears solid. With a hint of a Québécois accent (and impeccable French on the occasions he pulls it out), Gareth Potter carves out a strong, central performance as the title ->-bleeped-<-, who is really four layers of character pancaked on top of each other.

Hosanna, you see, was once (and may still be) the less melodramatically named Claude Lemieux, a farm boy from Saint-Eustache who escaped to Montreal at age 16. We meet him returning in tears from a rival drag queen's Halloween party dressed up as his idol Elizabeth Taylor, dressed up as Cleopatra in the 1963 movie.