SACKVILLE, N.B. – A sure sign of spring in many Maritime schools is the annual visit by Tintamarre, Mount Allison University’s unique and award-winning bilingual theatre company.
This year’s original comedy features the tyrannical Rex! who insists on the exclamation mark which follows his name.
Students and teachers from 20 schools will meet a very large, well-to-do baby who craves attention, causes chaos, and has great ambitions. Is he a man-baby or a baby-man? the neighbours wonder.
He’s both, according to Noémie Chiasson of Ste. Marie de Kent, N.B. and Caitlin O’Connor of Atholville, N.B, two touring actors who will be the troupe’s associate directors in 2018-19.
Caitlin and Noémie explain that Rex! is a bully for all seasons, as he inhabits what Alex Fancy, founder-director of Mount Allison’s Tintamarre, calls “a bullying culture.”
Spectators will see Rex! head off to school in the exotic vehicle his parents acquired on a foreign trip, and meet, on the way, an Internet troll who promises to be his friend. Rex! declares “I don’t want friends, I want fans” and Cyber-Troll obliges.
School is a turbulent experience, then comes Rex’s road to wealth and fame, which is a solitary one. An insomniac, he tweets at night and falls asleep in the daytime.
Sleep brings uncomfortable dreams and comic characters who awaken his guilt and reveal his lack of empathy, such as Cyber-Troll who decides to be a fan no longer. He is played by Evan Matthews of Halifax, who says that “Internet trolls can be distinctly amoral.”
Chiasson says that “spectators will meet Rex’s parents, a teacher, would-be friends, an imaginary competitor, the devoted executive assistant who runs his chain of world-class hotels, and the character I play: his sister who becomes a broken doll that haunts his dreams.”
O’Connor describes the route to Tintamarre productions: “Alex (Fancy) proposes a theme, we all imagine a story and characters, he writes the bilingual script, and then we all create the magic of theatre.”
Fancy is marking the 50th anniversary of his first production and says that theatre is “the only place where we can ask the most important questions, laughing all the while.”
As usual, Tintamarre’s visits to schools will also feature a Teacher’s Guide and a post-show discussion with audiences.
Presentations begin Monday, April 30 at ARHS while other Cumberland County performances include May 1 at the Oxford Regional Education Centre, May 8 at Springhill Junior-Senior High and May 11 at Pugwash District High School.
The tour is made possible by the Crake Foundation, alumni and friends of Tintamarre, participating schools, and 30 Mount Allison students who created the original production.
The set is designed Decima Mitchell (resident designer in Mount Allison’s Moyter-Fancy Theatre), production management by Paul Del Motte (of the Moyter-Fancy Theatre), musical direction by Nancy Vogan (Mount Allison professor emerita in Music). The eight actors are Mount Allison students and alumni.
The final performance of REX! is scheduled for Mount Allison’s Motyer-Fancy Theatre, Purdy Crawford Centre for the Arts, Sunday, May 13, from 4 to 5 p.m. No reservations, accessible venue, free-will donation. Contact [email protected] for additional information.
