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Alan Hustak

Steam Punk Sherlock

Par Alan Hustak le 12 mai 2013

Jay Baruchel is the big drawing card in Sherlock Holmes at the Segal Centre until May 28, but the hometown Hollywood actor of The Trotsky  fame is not the best thing about the production.  Undeniably,  Baruchel lends an enthusiastic presence.   His charisma cannot disguise the fact that he is an undisciplined stage actor whose rapid-fire, nasal delivery seems at times to channel Groucho Marx through John Cleese. Certain allowances, however, must be made.  With   a nod to his celebrity and to his  credit,  Baruchel accepted a challenge, took the risk, and does not play safe.  He certainly doesn’t embarrass himself, even though he does look a little too youthful to be sucking on a curved briar pipe.
 

What A Ride! The Bus Number 14

Par Alan Hustak le 6 mai 2013

Anyone who  regularly  depends on public transit can’t help but revel in the antics of The Number 14, the extravagantly theatrical stage  production running at the Centaur until May 26.  Staged by  Vancouver’s  Axis Theatre company,  a troupe of six masked  Commedia  dell’Arte  performers,  it  is a bus ride like no other.   Put together on the west coast 20 years ago by the Centaur’s artistic director Roy  Surette  (who originally directed) and Wayne  Specht,  the founding director of the Axis Theatre, (responsible for  this version),  The Number 14 basically illustrates the day in the life of a bus and its driver.

House Of Wax

Par Alan Hustak le 26 avril 2013

Embrace the kitsch.  

Almost 30 years after the wax museum at the corner of Queen Mary Road and Cote des Neiges closed its doors an interactive exhibition featuring wax celebrities has opened again, this time downtown in the Eaton Centre.  More than 120 life-size figurines are arranged in lavish  settings  on the top floor of the The work of artisans with the celebrated Grévin studio in Paris, the exhibition is, for the most part, geared to a francophone Quebec  audience.

How Great Can Gatsby Be?

Par Alan Hustak le 26 avril 2013

 

Will Baz Luhrman succeed where others have failed?  

The Australian film-maker’s  $150-million adaptation was to have been in theatres last Christmas but shooting down under was prolonged – not always a good sign in the industry of things to come.  It is now scheduled to open the Cannes Film Festival in May and is expected to be in movie theatres this summer.

 

Dance Me To The End on/off Love

Par Alan Hustak le 22 mars 2013

Dance me to the end on/off love at the Centaur until April 14 is a lugubrious, downright macabre exploration of love and pain by Granhoj Dans, a contemporary dance troupe from Denmark. The North American premiere of the show is described as a poetic meditation, an attempt to make Cohen’s words become flesh.
From the moment director Palle Granhoj steps on stage and boldly edits one of Cohen’s poems, furiously scribbling to make the verse suit himself , he makes it clear that he is expropriating the poet’s work to make it conform to his image of himself - although anyone sitting beyond the fifth row may have had trouble reading his scrawl. 

 

Oklahoma!

Par Alan Hustak le 21 mars 2013

I won’t throw bouquets or sigh and gaze too much, nor will I praise its charms too much.  People might think I liked the Hudson Village Theatre’s revival of the Rogers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! And they would be right – I  am head over heels in admiration of the intimacy and the ingenuity of the amateur production of this rousing musical, which was mounted on a stage no bigger than a postage stamp. (Complete with the ballet dream sequence.)  Because the theatre in an old train station is so small the romantic atmosphere of the story was in fact, somehow subtly deepend. 

Waiting For The Barbarians

Par Alan Hustak le 2 février 2013

The North American premiere of Waiting for the Barbarians at Segal Centre until Feb. 17 is a highly stylized, strikingly  contrived  South African production of a play based on J.M  Coetzee’s  allegorical novel of the same name.  It explores the monstrous aspects of the human psyche, and  centres on the abuse of  imperial power.  The play  suggests  that nothing really changes when one  regime is replaced with another -  a persecuted  minority, once empowered,  finds minorities of its own to tyrannize.  Even in democratic and free countries can governments  manipulate public opinion to marginalize opponents. Unless you are familiar with Coetzee’s book, the stage adaptation by  Alexandre Marine, may be occasionally dense and not easily accessible.

Innocence Lost

Par Alan Hustak le 1 février 2013

Innocence Lost  at the Centaur Theatre until Feb 21, tells  how a  web of mindless suspicion woven by decent,  god-fearing folk  in a rural Ontario  ensnared and destroyed Stephen Truscott, the  14-year old who was convicted and sentenced to hang for the 1959 rape and murder of a 12-year old classmate, Lynne Harper,  - a murder he  did not commit.   Under  Roy Surette’s  flawless,  even- handed direction, the production  of Beverley Cooper’s play quietly lays bare every painful emotion of that reprehensible chapter of  Canadian judicial history.  The cast of ten in  multiple  roles  is inspired.  Each and every actor brings to life the various respectable small-minded characters they play in a distinct theatrical creation. 

ZERO DARK THIRTY: Boots-on-the-ground thrill ride.

Par Alan Hustak le 14 janvier 2013

Ignore the controversy over whether the Americans used torture in their hunt for Osama Bin Laden, Zero Dark 30 is a boots- on- the- ground suspense thriller about the raid on his compound in  Abbottabad  which left Bin Laden and three others dead.    The movie is a draining,  morally complex exercise  that owes it success to director Kathryn Ann Bigelow and  to Jessica Chastain, in the role of  Maya,  the CIA operative whose intuition about the Al Qaeda  leader  is ignored  by her superiors, including the head of the CIA, (James Gandolfini)  precisely because she is  woman.
  

Les Misérables: An intimate spectacle

Par Alan Hustak le 26 décembre 2012

Les Misérables, the movie version of the durable stage play which has been running for 30 years, is an epic three-hour opera, with almost no spoken dialogue, and probably the best screen musical since West Side Story won 10 Oscars fifty years ago.  Tom Hooper, who directed last year’s Oscar w inning, The King’s Speech  gives us a production that creates 19th Century Paris on a grand scale,  a film that is simultaneously  intimate and spectacular, even  if, from time to time is also tuneless, choppy  and occasionally tedious.

Spielberg's Lincoln

Par Alan Hustak le 20 novembre 2012

Abraham Lincoln’s marble statue shuffles down from his  monument in Washington D.C.  dons  a stove pipe hat and is  deified on the screen in Steven Spielberg’s  reverential  historical drama  Lincoln. The movie, now playing, covers the last three and a half months of the 16th U.S. president’s life. 
As portrayed with a high pitched voice by Daniel Day Lewis,  this is an embattled  Lincoln,  world weary,  war weary,  wily, but still stubborn and politically expedient.

A Dark and Comic read: Bluebeard’s Seventh Door

Par Alan Hustak le 19 octobre 2012

Sex, guilt, music, Serbian-Croatian politics and the atrocities committed by the fascist  Croatian Ustasha revolutionary movement during the Second World War figure prominently in Bluebeard’s Seventh Door, Andre Vecsei ‘s didactic novel which his wife has published posthumously. The title comes from one of the author’s favourite operas by Bartok  in which pentatonic chords reminded him of “The antagonism between men and women.”

Vecsei is at his best describing  the musicians sexploits, especially a  licentiouis lecture tour in New York state. He returns to discover that his  Schererazade, has run away with a colleague and  learns the end of her story from a “a fat old  fabulist” .

CREATURE MYTHOLOGIES St. Henri gallery combines art and interior design.

Par Alan Hustak le 19 octobre 2012

NostraCasa  a  new  concept gallery opening in St. Henri Aug 30 represents a felicitous  marriage of contemporary  art, interior design and eco-luxurious furniture.

A dozen artists are represented at the gallery’s opening art exhibition  Creature Mythologies, a show that features fairy tale beings, astonishing animals, and esoteric creatures that dwell in an artist’s deep flight of fancy. It is an usual concept  that combines the surreal with conceptual photography and sculpture.

4035 St-Ambroise, Suite 407, Montreal, Quebec  Tel.: 1 (514) 937-1549

John Lynch-Staunton

Par Alan Hustak le 23 août 2012

John Lynch-Staunton was the amicable Canadian senator who played a crucial role in the merger of the Canadian Alliance and Progressive-Conservative Parties and served as the Conservative Party’s first interim leader for four months until Stephen Harper won the leadership  in  2004.  Before Lynch-Staunton was named to The Senate by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney in 1990 he had been a Montreal city councillor and vice-chairman of the City of Montreal’s Executive committee when Jean Drapeau was Mayor. 
Lynch-Staunton was 82 when he died August 17 of a heart attack while on vacation in the Alberta foothills.

 

105: The New 85 Westmounter Lucille Pacaud

Par Alan Hustak le 19 août 2012

Lucille Pacaud joins an exclusive club next Monday (Aug 27) when she celebrates her 105th birthday. Only about  100 women in Quebec have reached that age. Not many of them who have are  as alert as the woman affectionately known to her friends as  “Auntie Lou. “It’s a hell of a nuisance,” she said about her birthday as she thumbed through  some letters that she wrote in 1926 which she hadn’t seen in years.  “I am a little bit  frightened and  amazed  that have outlived all the friends of my generation. There is so much to remember and so much to forget.”   The secret to living so long she says, is to “walk, to keep walking everyday.” Pacaud retired from her job as a volunteer at the Montreal General Hospital six years ago shortly after she moved into Fulford House.

No Ordinary Joe

Par Alan Hustak le 14 août 2012

Three things you need to know about Killer Joe:  the movie which opened Friday at the Scotia Cinema : it is directed by William Friedkin, who made The Exorcist so nerve wracking,  it stars Matthew McConaughey, an actor of deadly charm as a West Dallas police officer who moonlights as a contract killer  and it’s based on an offbeat Broadway play by a skewed Pulitzer prize winning playwright, Tracy Letts.

China Pulls Focus at This Year's Montreal World Film Festival

Par Alan Hustak le 8 août 2012

It’s hard to know what to make of Million Dollar Crocodile, the Chinese film chosen to open the Montreal World Film Festival this year. Is it high camp, art, a publicity stunt or simply pandering to the growing Chinese influence in Canada?
A  Chinese delegation at the festival  will  take  part  in a week long  forum on film distribution in China.  “The Chinese cinema is one of the strongest in the world right now, and it can be compared to Hollywood in its variety and Its depth,” festival president Serge Losique explained.

Reverend Msgr. Barry Egan-Jones 1932-2012. “God’s publicist,” priest promoted Jewish Christian dialogue.

Par Alan Hustak le 30 juillet 2012

Barry Egan-Jones was English-language director of public relations for the Roman Catholic diocese of Montreal for 25 years before he was named administrator of St. Patrick’s basilica in 1996 where he was given the daunting task of completing the $2.5-million restoration of the historic downtown church.  He started the Catholic Times diocesan newspaper, was on the CBC’s regional advisory council and was the commentator for the national broadcaster during Pope John Paul’s 1984 visit to Canada.  Urbane and socially well-connected, Rev. Egan Jones also conducted part of his ministry writing pointed letters to the editor.  He was 80 when he died of a heart attack on July 25.

A final salute for a fallen comrade.

Par Alan Hustak le 20 juillet 2012

The casket of firefighter Thierry Godfrind, 39, who died accidentally while fighting a fire on July 13 leaves Montreal City Hall  Friday July 20 after lying in state. 

Leo Leonard, a.k.a Clawhammer Jack : last of the urban horsemen.

Par Alan Hustak le 18 juillet 2012

Leo Leonard, affectionately known as Clawhammer Jack, was an authentic urban horseman who maintained a horse palace in the heart of  Montreal’s Griffintown  neighbourhood for almost five decades.  A third generation Irishman, Leonard was a horse whisperer and a former caléche driver who lived in the same neighbourhood just below the Bell Centre for almost all of his 86 years. He held out almost to the end against developers  who wanted his property for office and commercial space and for affordable and subsidized housing. He died on July 5 several months after finally moving out of Griffintown.

Maria Marrelli, Italian Community Activist, and former Citizenship Court Judge

Par Alan Hustak le 24 juin 2012

Maria Marrelli was the community activist and local columnist before she was named a Citizenship Court Judge in 1977. Mrs. Marrelli, who was 97 when she died on June 21 was well known in Notre Dame de Grace, where she was heavily involved as a Liberal party organizer and as a warden of St. Raymond’s parish, and as an interpreter at the local caisse populaire.

”She was a leader. A force to be reckoned with. Not only was she able to express her views, she was able to rally people behind her so when she spoke, she spoke with a unified voice,” said  Montreal’s Executive Committee Chairman, Michael Applebaum. Applebaum said the borough will see how best to honour her achievements in a permanent manner

Madeleine Parent

Par Alan Hustak le 18 mai 2012

Madeleine Parent was a diminutive but fearless union organizer, labour leader and community activist who devoted her life to improving the cause of working women and to the creation of uniquely Canadian labour unions. Parent, who was 93 when she died March 12 helped to create the Candian Textile and Chemical Workers Union, organized women in Ontario, was active in the Féderation des femmes du Québec, fought for abortion on demand in the 1950s, and championed the rights of aboriginal women.

Neil McKenty 1924-2012: broadcaster, author, and former Jesuit.

Par Alan Hustak le 18 mai 2012

The irreverent Jesuit who left the priesthood and went on to become the cornerstone of Montreal talk radio died Saturday morning at the age of 87. During his 14 years as a CJAD telephone talk show host in the 70’s and 80’s he brought a degree of  civility to  the charged political atmosphere  in province after the election of the Parti Quebecois in 1976, and in the referendum that followed.  In its heyday, his program, Exchange, attracted as many as 85,000 listeners or more than a quarter of the city’s English-speaking audience.

Marc Gervais: Jesuit champion of cinema. 1929-2012

Par Alan Hustak le 28 mars 2012

Rev. Marc  Gervais was a charismatic Jesuit priest, teacher and movie critic who rattled Vatican authorities in the late 1960s by championing Teorma,  a  homoerotic  film by a Communist film maker Pierre Pasolini which celebrated the healing power of human sexuality.    Rev. Gervais taught cinema and communication arts at Concordia University in Montreal for 25 years  where he  influenced the careers of students such as Clark Johnson, who plays in the HBO television series, The Wire,  Oscar winning Quebec film maker, Denys Arcand , producer Kevin Tierney (Good Cop, Bad Cop) and the CBC television journalist Hannah Gartner. Admired as a leading authority on the films of Ingmar Bergman, whom he knew, Gervais died Sunday (march 25) at a retirement home in Pickering, Ont. He was  82 .

Heard the one about the priest, the Rabbi and the Imam?

Par Alan Hustak le 12 mars 2012

It’s no joke, but there is a punch line: faithblender.com.  The new inter-faith blog which went on line three weeks ago (Feb 14) features postings by Montreal broadcaster  and Roman Catholic priest John Walsh, Orthodox Jewish Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz, and Imam Ziyad Delic of Ottawa, who is considered to be among the world’s 500 most influential Muslims. 

 

 

 

KNUT HAMMARSKJOLD, DIPLOMAT 1922-2012

Par Alan Hustak le 12 mars 2012

Knut Hammarskjöld was the Swedish diplomat who served in Montreal for 18 years as the second executive director of the International Air Transport Association, which regulates the interests of most of the world’s commercial airlines. Hammarskjöld was the nephew of the United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld, who was killed in a mysterious plane crash in Africa in 1961. Knut Hammerskjold, who died at his home in Lidingo on Jan. 3, two weeks shy of his 90th birthday, considered his distinguished uncle as a second father. 

Irving Layton

Par Alan Hustak le 12 mars 2012

Irving Layton wrote more than 50 books of poetry during his lifetime. When he died seven years ago  Leonard Cohen  eulogised  him as  “our greatest poet and our greatest champion of poetry.”   Had Layton  lived, he would be 100 on March 12.  To mark the centennial of his birth in  Tirgu Neamt, Romania there will be poetry readings from his work in 20 cities across Canada, including Montreal. “This is the first time that Canada will be connected through poetry,” said Elias Letelier, co-founder of the online magazine, Poetry Quebec, which is sponsoring the event. 

Charles Dickens: The man who gave us Christmas

Par Alan Hustak le 16 décembre 2011

In the spring of 1842 Charles Dickens took a steamboat from Kingston, Ont. and sailed down the St. Lawrence intoMontreal with his wife, Catherine, and found the town  “full of life and bustle.”  Dickens was 30 and had already written six books, including Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby. No other novelist has had such a spectacular success. Two hundred years after he was born in 1812, Dickens remains as immortal as Shakespeare.  It  is probably fair to say more people know of Oliver Twist, the artful dodger, Syndey Carton, Miss Havisham, Micawber, Scrooge and Tiny Tim from the endless  television mini-series, movies and Broadway musicals based on his novels than they do from reading his books.

Jack Layton, a happy warrior

Par Alan Hustak le 26 août 2011

There can be no argument that Jack Layton built a place in history. “Bon Jack”, was today’s NDP.
A cheerful political warrior, Layton’s always positive, often too sunny demeanour resonated with many. In the recent federal election Quebecers felt, because of Jack, that the NDP was a comfortable pace to park their votes and  propelled him into the Opposition leader’s seat. And this year, many Ontario Liberals abandoned their leader to become, at least for one election, “Layton Liberals.”

Caravaggio the outcast and artist

Par Alan Hustak le 26 août 2011

 

The National Gallery in Ottawa has scored a coup with its blockbuster Caraviggo exhibition that runs until  Sept. 11.

Caravaggio and His Followers in Rome  features  ten  paintings  never  before seen  in North America, two that have, and another  50 paintings by artists who were influenced by  his work.   In view of the fact that only 70  of the artists works  known to exist, and many of them are altar pieces that cannot be moved,  it’s an extraordinary collection. 

 

GRIFFITH BREWER 1922-2011 Theatre Stalwart

Par Alan Hustak le 2 août 2011

Griffith Brewer was a mainstay of Montreal s English- speaking theatre for almost 80 years. He was an unassuming supporting actor, properties master, director, carpenter and all around handyman who rarely let his ego interfere with his love of the stage.  Even after  he retired and lost his sight and roles for senior actors  became  harder to find  he was content to play a  corpse.

The Blogging Bishop

Par Alan Hustak le 18 juillet 2011

Canada’s newest and youngest Roman Catholic bishop-elect, Thomas Dowd, is  a media savy priest who says his appointment as auxiliary bishop of Montreal signals a generational shift in the thinking of the church.

Dowd is expected to shoulder some  of the workload now being done by Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte. Among his duties, Dowd will be responsible for the city’s 250,000 English-speaking Catholics who have been without a bishop of their own since  Anthony Mancini left four years ago to become Archbishop of Halifax. 

Claude Léveillée 1932-2011

Par Alan Hustak le 16 juin 2011

Claude Léveillée, who died June 9th at the age of 78, was one of Quebec`s most alluring singers and a poet in the tradition of Felix Leclerc and Gilles Vigneault.   Léveillée worked with and wrote 25 songs for the legendary French singer Edith Piaf and another 30 with Gilles Vigneault. Among his best known melodies are Fréderic, Elle Tournera la Terre, Quelques arpents de neiges, Piano Méchanique. His best known hit, perhaps, was Roger Williams recording of  Leveillee’s Pour les Amants as Only for Lovers.  Léveillée  was also an actor seen in Denys Arcand`s Jésus de Montréal and played the character of Émile Rosseau in the 1990 French-language television series Scoop.

Election analysis: What Harper hath wrought

Par Alan Hustak le 10 juin 2011

The True North  is undeniably  stronger  for Conservative supporters  following the recent election but  is perhaps a  little less free for those who believe that liberalism and  social justice still matter.
The Harper government’s 15-seat majority  puts an end to  political uncertainty for the next four years. But the untimely  collapse of the Liberal party  leaves the country without  a voice for non-dogmatic policies, a less invasive government and a fidelity to executive federalism.

 

JEAN-PIERRE GOYER: Born in Ville St. Laurent, long-time MP for Dollard was architect of prison reform

Par Alan Hustak le 10 juin 2011

As Solicitor General in Pierre Trudeau’s government, Jean-Pierre Goyer was the architect of prison reform in Canada. Concerned about both the cost of keeping a prisoner in jail and the rate of recidivism, Goyer promoted  a more humane approach to incarceration. During the 1970’s heintroduced better haircuts and better clothing for inmates, inaugurated new housing arrangements that permitted conjugal visits, and made it easier for prisoners to work and go to school. If society really was to be protected, prison he argued, should offer inmates a “more rehabilitative atmosphere.”