MainLine Theatre - 3997 Saint-Laurent, Montréal QC 514-849-3378

Mismatched furniture, lamps even your crazy auntie would toss out, fake food props, scores of empty Jameson bottles in the office—MainLine theatre has always had the air of a dude’s den, the junk a teenager might have put together from years of curbside scavenging.

MainLine as a company began as the Montreal chapter of the Fringe Festival. They’ve been in operation as a separate entity from the fest for nearly 10 years (and five years now at their familiar spot on the Main). Their new show, The Mid-Life Crisis of Dionysus, is the second musical that MainLine’s artistic director Jeremy Hechtman, general manager Patrick Goddard, and composer Nick Carpenter have collaborated on since Johnny Canuck and the Last Burlesque—their first in-house production in 2006.

The authors and I are in the beat-up theatre and we start by getting all the clichés out of the way.

“We’re really proud of everyone who’s worked on the show.”

“We couldn’t have done it without them, really—it’s a group effort.”

“It’s a privilege to work with such a talented cast.”

Okay, so is everybody giving 110 per cent, I ask? “Well, there are 11 people in the cast and each one is giving 10 per cent, so ...yeah.”

Okay, there’s at least 14, but who’s counting? Hechtman had the idea for the show well before staging Johnny Canuck. “It was rattling around in my head for maybe 10 years,” he says. But the effort in keeping a new theatre together—and for Hechtman and his wife, a new baby—meant shelving it for a while. “We didn’t have the time to put into it,” Hechtman says. “We needed things to settle down before we could start writing another show. It took three years to write Johnny Canuck and it took about three years to write this one.”

What happens is an irreverent take on Dionysus and the myths surrounding him: a dual-natured god who evoked both revellery and madness—born of a mortal mother, the founder of a cult whose drunken followers worshipped him ecstatically in the wilds, and a god who ventured into Hades to rescue the dead.
Mythology meets biography

Billed as a one-man show with a Greek chorus, the players surround their skinny idol (Paul Van Dyck)—a deity at a crossroads. What happens when the god of sensual indulgence approaches middle age and can’t carry on like he once did? It’s here where autobiographical elements of one author start to infiltrate the story.

“A fair amount of the play is autobiographical—Dionysus getting on and losing his hair,” says Hechtman. “I’ve been known to enjoy the occasional drink from time to time...a snifter of brandy on the holidays. I’ve lived a life with a fair amount of excess—a very Dionysian life—and started getting older. You don’t live like you’re 20 when you’re 40, and it presents a dilemma: what do I do now? I don’t really want to settle down and live in the suburbs, and it’s not an easy transition to living a life of moderation.”

Paul Van Dyck was part of the first MainLine musical and has worked on nearly all of their productions since. When Hechtman cast him as the lead, he began to see the role in a new light. “Paul’s great. I’ve had to distance myself from the character, and Paul’s helped define it and make it his own. I was trying to find someone to play me,” the rather un-Dionysian-looking Hechtman says.

“Only, talented...” Goddard adds.

The desire to make another musical followed the subject. Goddard points to his collaborator. “The thing you originally said was that since Dionysus was the god of wine, women and song—to do a show without songs was impossible.”

“He was the god of theatre too,” Goddard continues. “We wanted to play with Greek tragic elements as well and have a big chorus—and if you have that, you pretty much have to do a musical.”

The cast is a mix of familiar names, fresh faces just out of school, and new arrivals on the Montreal theatre scene. Even occasional theatre-goers—anyone who has seen some Fringe shows or a production from Tableau d’Hôte or Fallen Angel—will recognize actors like George Bekiaris and Vance De Waele. But another thing the producers wanted was to show off the hidden talents of people whom the audience think they know. Listing a couple of well-known Montreal actors, Hechtman says, “Not that many people know that Shawn Baichoo plays drums, or that Joanne Sarazen can sing.”

Or know anything about newcomer Jade Hassouné, an actor-singer-dancer who Hechtman calls “unbelievably talented.” “I asked him at the audition if he could tap dance. He said ‘Yes.’ Of course he couldn’t—but he learned it for the show and he picked it up, brilliantly, like that.”

“There were some discoveries in the audition who are going to be absolutely huge,” Hechtman continues. “Like Patrick Goddard,” interrupts Goddard. “—no, not him so much...”

Rather it was people like Molly McGivern, who studied here once and has returned from her native Hawaii, who impressed the writers with her multi-instrumental talents, dance steps and vocals. Or Eleanor Young, who Goddard knew as an actor before discovering she was in the dance program at Concordia, with a minor in jazz vocal. “She came in all humble with her guitar and said, ‘I’m just going to do a little Joni Mitchell,’ and then completely knocked us out.”

Chorus members take on different parts throughout the show, playing all the music, picking up a guitar, clarinet—or Mongolian fiddle—as required. “We actually had to cast quadruple threats,” Goddard says. “They had to act, sing, dance and play an instrument.”
Greek chorus mix-up

The mix of styles ranges from blues to ’50s Rat Pack to klezmer, including an almost obligatory rap number, with Hechtman and Goddard venturing into territory mapped out by fellow Fringers Jerome Sable and Eli Batalion (J.O.B. The Hip-Hopera)—taking ancient text and rewriting it gangsta-style. They offer a sample of their creation. “When you mess with the Bacchae, you get a black eye...”, which prompts an involuntary groan.

As the man responsible for bringing the wild ideas to musical fruition, Nick Carpenter is next to the stage, holding it all down on piano. He takes the group through a vocal warm-up as everyone crowds around him, then leads them through a gospel number. Goddard’s a cast member too, sliding across stage on his knees in a call and response with the chorus, who sway as they belt out, “...ain’t nothing wrong with... wiiiine, women, and song!”

“This is a surreal monster of a show,” Hechtman says. “With centaurs, hydras, tap dancing Viagra pills, Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde and Marie Antoinette. You don’t build these quickly—they take a lot of time.”

It’s also milestone of sorts. Opening a few months before the 20th anniversary of the Montreal Fringe, and with 15 years at the wheel for Hechtman, he’s stepping down from the festival to concentrate exclusively on running MainLine. He’ll pass it off to Amy Blackmore, the choreographer of Dionysus and a Fringe fest helper for years. It seems like it’ll be in good hands. At the rehearsal, Blackmore sports a black t-shirt with immense lettering across the front: TABARNAC.

Meanwhile, there’s a musical to get ready and tighten up. “If I can get dramaturgical about this comedy for a moment,” says Goddard, assuming a professorial tone, “the very term ‘comic’ refers to the god of the corn, Komos. So the show is in fact ...corny.”

Hechtman gives him an amazed look, “Well done.”

“That’s the other reason I’m here,” Goddard shrugs.