Hey Ho!  This is gonna be one late Foofarah, lemme tell you.  I was supposed to write it earlier today, before my 4 pm work shift.  But I got told by THE BOSS that I had to be in at 1:30 for a SPECIAL MEETING, which if I inferred correctly from the limited information he gave me, was mostly so that I could be told how terrible I am at my job. Fair enough!  But then I arrived at 1:30 and…no Boss.  No meeting!  Just a shitload of nothing, folks, including no Foofarah.  So here I sit, well after the official Monday has ended in MY time zone, but too defiant to let it go at that.  I had things to say, dammit!  So, as long as it’s still Monday SOMEwhere, let’s get on with the motherfuckin’ MONDAY FOOFARAH, eh folks?  And as always, first things first…

– IN THEATRES THIS WEEK:

FLY ME TO THE MOON at the GCTC. Last week for the smash show starring Margo MacDonald ad Mary Ellis…crowd-pleasing perfection.

THIRSTY at the NAC Studio.  A cool, jazzy poem of a show, playing into next week.  Great performances and words.

MARY’S WEDDING at the Ron Maslin Playhouse, from Kanata Theatre.  A rare community two-hander…hoping I can make it out myself!  Last week.

SOUS-SOL A LOUER at Theatre de L’Ile. Wacky French hijinks!  Playing all month long.

ABC DEMOLITION at la Nouvelle Scene, from Theatre de la Vielle 17.  Cool sounding show, featuing Paul Rainville in a rare French appearance (I think it’s rare, anyhow).  Starts on the 14th, English surtitles on Thursday!

THE EUMENIDES at the Ottawa School of Speech and Drama. A new grad class of OTS gangsters in their first final year show!  GHonna be a gooder, folks.

INVENTION DU CHAUFFAGE CENTRAL EN NOUVEAU-FRANCE at the NAC.  I still haven’t made it out to any of the NAC French theatre!  This one sounds pretty sweet.

WORKSHOP II: 4TH YEAR ONE-ACTS at Studio Leonard Beaulne.  Running for three weeks, this weeks crop of FREE shows are at 8pm on the 16th and 17th.  God bless Ottawa U, folks.

And the UNDERCURRENTS LAUNCH PARTY upstairs at the GCTC! At 5pm this Thursday, come find out what Pat Gauthier’s got in store for us this time!

THEATRE:  I meant to write a post about this show yesterday, but I had THAT day ruined by work too, when the new guy called in sick and I had to run in for an emergency 12-hour shift (incidentally, if anyone out there has a slightly lower-stress job for me, I’LL TAKE IT).  But anyways, a few days ago I caught the second performance of a three-show run from Ottawa U’s Theatre de la Licorne, one of their director’s series.  A free show, so hard to argue with going, and the show itself was Larry Tremblay’s LE VENTRILOQUE.  Evolution Theatre put on an English translation of this show a few years back, and if Evolution would give it a go, I was hooked.  This one was directed by Eric Perron, winner of the first ever Aronovitch-Beddows bursary/prize/scholarship/whatever, and after seeing his show, I’m convinced they made the right choice.  Holy shitballs, but this was a cool evening out, gang.  Starting with a manic entrance into the foyer of SLB itself (echoing the similar approach taken by the Ottawa Shakespeare crew and JULIUS CAESER recently), then leading down into the studio where the predictably cool set awaited, it was a mindbender from the word go.  Telling the very twisted tale of Gaby (Marie-Eve Fontaine, and occasionally Venessa Lachance), a young girl and wannabe best writer in the world, hiding out in her room from her snarling Mother (Virginie Houet) and timid Dad (Marc-Andre Tessier).  A strange meeting with the enigmatic Doctor Limestone (Nicolas Tremblay-Foisy) ensues, and the rest is just too plum weird to explain.  Suffice to say, Fontaine and Tremblay-Foisy were superb as our two slightly (highly) schizoid leads, and the rest of the cast was pretty much a huge competition for my scene-stealer of the year award in a few months.  I understood why Evolution did this piece, and even felt reminded of them a few times (especially the bit with the chair…SO cool).  These kids did the work proud, and I damn near came and saw it again the next day.  Props to pianist Lachance, who had to be onstage in her skivvies the entire time…GREAT music in the show, too, not only from her piano but from guitarist Marc-Andre Seguin.  And Dillon Orr as Balzac?  Icing on the cake, my friends.  Job WELL done.

BEAUTY: Recently I checked out the premiere episode of the new BEAUTY AND THE BEAST show on the CW, as research for my ever-ongoing LEAGUE project that I will likely never, ever touch again, but still like to pretend I will.  IT made me think.  We’re all familiar with the story of Beauty and the Beast, whether from the lovely and destructive disney flick, or the classic Cocteau film, or the classic stories, or even the late 80’s teevee show, which the current show is officially considered a remake of. That show featured Ron ‘Hellboy’ Perlman as the titular Beast.  Here’s what he looked like in the show:

The NEW series features some dude name of Jay Ryan as the ‘Beast’.  And here’s what HE looks like (ladies, you may want to avert your eyes)…

It’s interesting…I remember, years ago, joking with my mates that no one could ever realistically do a reverse Beauty and the Beast, where a good looking guy fell for an ‘ugly’ woman, because men are too shallow for anyone to believe it.  And now..well, I guess we’ve come all the way around on this one, haven’t we?  Now the only way we can believe a winsome flower like Kristen Kreuk (who is still working after Smallville, and fuck you for THAT, universe) would fall for a ‘Beast’, is if he happened to look like an underwear model.  Which of course undermines the ENTIRE PURPOSE of the Beauty and the Beast concept.  The beauty within becomes somewhat irrelevant if the beauty without outshines it by a country mile.  It says loads about our current cultural state, and not a lot of it good.  What’s a man got to do to get some UGLY around here, anyways??  On that note, here’s Joey Ramone, the KING of the ugly people:

COMIX:  Gonna finish this one off with a bit of new comic pimping…still VERY happy with the new line of Valiant comix, they’re relaunching the titles but good.  If you’re not reading ARCHER AND ARMSTRONG, you’re missing out on some sweet fun books.  And Grant Morrison’s new mini for Image comix, HAPPY! with Transmetropolitan artist Darick Robertson, is hyper-violent mad good shit.  Same goes for Millar and Kubert’s HIT-GIRL series, spinning off from Kick-Ass.  And Brandon Graham of King City fame has a new book out!  It’s called MULTIPLE WARHEADS and of course, you should be reading it.  Because I said so.    And with that, and this video of the latest in a series of teevee shows I hope they release on dvd soon, I leave you.  Peace, love and soul, you lot,

The Visitor (and Winston)