With jet-black humour, Benevolence explores love and self-loathing, to October 15

Produced in English by Ruby Slippers Theatre in partnership with Pacific Theatre, the play by Quebec’s Fanny Britt won the 2013 Governor General’s award for drama

By Gail johnson

Benevolence. Photo by Moonrider Productions

Pacific Theatre presents Benevolence, a Ruby Slippers Theatre guest production, from September 30 to October 15 at Pacific Theatre

WE LOVE THE tagline for Benevolence: “I think I’m talking to my dead father as he throws clay pots while chanting Québec poetry. So clearly I have issues.”

The play explores the complexities of friendship, generational responsibility, and the significance of walking away from something you love. Originally performed in French, Fanny Britt’s Benevolence won the Governor General’s award for drama in 2013.

In a first for Vancouver, the play is being presented in English with translation by Leanna Brodie. Produced in partnership with Pacific Theatre, Benevolence stems from Ruby Slippers Theatre’s goal to boost exposure to Québécois work here.

Here’s the plot line: Montreal lawyer Gilles Jean returns to his small hometown of Benevolence to try a troubling case involving the child of an old friend. “But with the ghosts of his deceased brothers and father peering over his shoulder, and his mother asking after the state of his soul, homecoming is no easy thing,” according to a release. “This pitch-black comedy offers a surreal reflection on our small cowardices and our great contradictions.”

Benevolence. Photo by Moonrider Productions

Featuring Charlie Gallant (Noises Off), Chris Lam (A Prayer For Owen Meany), Paul Moniz de Sá, Stephanie Wong, and Beatrice Zeilinger, Benevolence is directed by Ruby Slippers’ artistic director Diane Brown.

“Ruby Slippers Theatre has been commissioning and producing English translations of compelling Québec works for years,” Brown says in the release. “I chose this play because, poetic and raw, this spectacle of intimacy deftly explores our capacity for love and self-loathing, for clarity and delusion. Britt’s world is uncomfortably personal, blending the surreal with the banal, moral queasiness with jet black humour, culminating in a challenge to act - to do the right thing - in a society that is morally and spiritually bankrupt.”

For more information, see pacifictheatre.org or www.rubyslippers.ca.

Benevolence. Photo by Moonrider Productions

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