Theatre band Belzébrute juggle elaborate costumes, combat choreography, puppetry, live music and pseudo-Japanese dialogue in the micro-budgeted yet epic-scaled Manga!
Even though they had played at Fringe before, only last year did the members of Belzébrute feel that they had truly experienced the festival to the fullest, not only presenting a play of their own, Shavirez, Gypsy of the Sea, but also attending some 25 other shows and hosting Fringe-moi, a daily bilingual webcast featuring profiles of artists, pre-taped skits and live performances.
"We would go see a show, do ours, then we’d go see another show, hang out at the beer tent, check out what The 13th Hour was doing," remembers Caroline Fortin. "It’s so fun to be in the midst of Fringe, to live to the beat of the festival."
Belzébrute ended up winning the 2010 Spirit of the Fringe award, which made the small independent company, which defines itself as a "theatre band," particularly happy because its members had been feeling for a while that they were a perfect fit for the festival. Generally not at ease with the institutions that rule over Montreal’s French theatre community (Carte Prem1ères being a notable exception), they appreciate the looser, more open attitude that makes Fringe unlike any other event.
"There’s usually kind of a divide between francophones and anglophones at Fringe, but we wanted to break through that, we wanted to get to know the English companies," says Jocelyn Sioui, referring to the way they approach Fringe-moi (which Belzébrute will host again this year), but also to the decision to have their new play, Manga!, do away with language barriers. "We were wondering how we could do a show that would be without boundaries. Then came the idea of doing it in pseudo-Japanese…"
SYMPATHY FOR LADY VENGEANCE
Not unlike Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill, which Belzébrute acknowledges as an influence, Manga! is a revenge tale taking place in a colourful, off-the-wall universe informed by Japanese pop culture, from samurai and martial arts films to kabuki theatre, anime and, of course, manga.
"It’s neither a homage nor a spoof of manga. We were inspired by it, but we’re not necessarily big fans of the genre," admits Éric Desjardins. "The idea for Manga! came up during a brainstorming session and we all lit up, we figured it’d make for something really fun visually," says Fortin. "Japan is so beautiful, and there’s something mysterious about it… It was curiosity first and foremost that guided us," adds Amélie Poirier-Aubry.
Telling the story of Ritsuko (Caroline Fortin), a Japanese woman conducting a vendetta against the evil shogun (Jocelyn Sioui) who killed her parents, Manga! is the second part in a "trilogy of vengeance" that started with Shavirez, Gypsy of the Sea and will conclude with a third instalment that will have Belzébrute tackling another iconic genre. "After dealing with pirates and samurais, we’re going to make a western," reveals Sioui. "We love brainstorming and coming up with crazy ideas. Then the challenge is to realize them with the limited means we have!"
TURNING JAPANESE
The concept of having the dialogue spoken in "pseudo-Japanese" proved more challenging than planned. "We though it was really funny at first, then less so, because it wasn’t easy to make it intelligible so that people could still follow what was happening," Sioui recalls, before assuring us that he and his colleagues eventually cracked the code, and that the end result is "like watching a silent film – the action speaks for itself." Desjardins, who plays more than a dozen characters in the play, said, "It’s like acting in a language that’s not your own, you really let yourself go in the emotion. Right away, during the first scene we acted out, we were like, ‘Damn! It works!’"
The company’s most ambitious project to date, Manga! required much DIY ingenuity on everyone’s part. "The costumes were all made with recycled fabric. We asked people to give us old drapes and stuff, and we received some wonderful things. The guy who did the sets [scenographer Mathieu Poirier-Galarneau] also used recycled materials," explains Fortin. Other artists who contributed to the creation of the show include Jacinthe Massey, who did the drawings that are projected on stage, and Clémence Doray, in charge of everything from stage management to lighting design and marketing.
Music plays an integral role in Manga!, with Poirier-Aubry playing various instruments on stage, in full costume and makeup. "I have a bass drum and a floor tom which stand for a Japanese taiko, and I made myself a small Japanese guitar, what they call a shamisen," she says. "I also play harp and flute, I sing and I play sound effects on a keyboard with my feet!"
First performed at Mainline Theatre last January, the show has been revamped for its presentation at Fringe, with Belzébrute specifically focusing on making the second half as "crazy" as the first. Owing as much to film, cartoons and comic books as it does, Manga! is bound to attract an audience that doesn’t usually go to see plays. "A lot of people who never go to the theatre see our shows and love them," Jocelyn points out. "People are thrilled to see a fantastic universe brought to life on stage, often through simple but clever and fun ideas. Like, we gave Ritsuko some puppet legs so she could do high kicks in the air."
"I’m not flexible enough! And I can’t fly!" Fortin explains.
Manga!
Fringe at La Chapelle (3700 St-Dominique)
June 11-12, 15, 17-19
12 comments
Bridging the Anglo-Franco divide by all coming together and parading around as Japanese? Stuff like this makes me embarrassed to be white. As a friend of mine pointed out on Facebook, how is this different from white people getting themselves up in blackface?
When a group is this irresponsible and unimaginative in their blatant cultural appropriation, I am surpirsed by their lack of precision and understanding of their art and action. How does something so old and tired get support? Does the audience really buy this?
I think it’s all in good fun. From the get-go, Belzébrute points out that this is “pseudo-Japanese”, and their play doesn’t take place in actual Japan but in “an off-the-wall universe informed by Japanese pop culture.”
Hence the title: Manga! This is a comic book/cartoon, not a representation of anything resembling reality…
White actors speaking “pseudo-Japanese” … how curious. What language is that, exactly? Is it perhaps the language spoken at 1:40 in this video?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7XAJo3rQn8
This reminds me of a certain Montreal group, YAMANTAKA // SONIC TITAN, that graced the pages of the Montreal Mirror and Hour on numerous occasions. The difference between them? YT//ST was mostly formed of Asian-Canadian members, whose work was critical of cultural appropriation. The appropriation by the White Canadian community of our cultural expressions were the reason for the original formation: If the dominant culture will wear our cultures as costumes while our identities are marginalized by their post-colonial viewpoints, then us minorities should do it better. Though I would never question the right of these individuals to rip off and mine our cultures, once reviled by the European but now fetishized, I argue that they are offensive, dated and uninspired. What is the point in alienating the people of the cultures you claim to draw inspiration from, just so you can ‘honour’ their contributions to the global community with a cheap vaudevillian mockery of their languages and practices all performed for your own people? Have you ever given a thought to those artists who actually are Asian, who work tirelessly to achieve recognition for their work? They exist, and if given the proper stage, would out perform and out class you without breaking a sweat.
umm, hello yellowface. what in the everliving fresh hell is this shit?
Looks more like “white” face than anything…
Do you really think they’re the first non-Asian theater company to do Kabuki-style make-up?
Oh, and how about actually seeing Manga! before passing judgment on it?
I don’t really think the issue is the Kabuki makeup…
You know that part of Breakfast at Tiffany’s that is literally every scene Mickey Rooney is in? It’s that thing where you watch it, and it’s like, “holy shit, how were we so recently at a place where this seemed like a good idea?” And I mean, even that was 50 years ago. The notion of actors sincerely speaking “pseudo-Japanese,” who can’t even manage to work up a more nuanced self-reflection than “neither a homage nor a spoof” of the culture upon which their entire show is based, gives me that queasy, skin-crawling feeling all over again. Surely a character like Mr. Yunioshi is undeserving of this kind of legacy.
FRINGE FESTIVAL OR CRINGE FESTIVAL, AMIRITE???????
“Oh, and how about actually seeing Manga! before passing judgment on it?”
Sounds to me like you are suffering from a fundamental misunderstanding of what ‘judgement’ is. Even as an asian-canadian, I am not an arbiter or judge of what is right or wrong. A critique is not a judgement. Sounds to me like you are feeling defensive because you wrote an article about something that cannot be a positive experience to add to the racist canon of North American media. But honestly, am I surprised? Quebec’s Cirque De Soleil produced Ka, a show with fake Asian languages and pseudo yellow-face, albeit a stunning production. Similarly, if an Asian theatre company pretended to be White Canadians for an ignorant production complete with goof ball interpretations of the English or French language, we would laugh at it for being quite silly. In the same way, I deride Manga! regardless of how well they may perform. For their next project, I recommend they give their houses and belongings to some Japanese-Canadians and move onto an interment camp for a little while. Now that show would impress me.
gee, people. Loosen up and have some fun. You just didn’t get it. The art world is full of people imitating other people. That’s what it’s all about.
wow! I loved Manga. And I will love it when I see it again. The idea is to transcend language. fake japanese, fake western, fake french, made up words, whatever! the beauty of all of Belzebrute’s creations is the scope of what they can accomplish with so little means. And the beauty of Manga is that they really DO tell a story with words that we can’t understand, and the comic-book look is there as well. These guys are bursting with ideas and really do a lot with very little.
Ed Janzen
ruby kato attwood
and Kevin Laforest
now a play like this may seem racists but you just have to understand that there only creating a diffrent world from there minds and i think that them imagining a world as being white raced should be taken as a complement also the way something as old as this gets popular is because of the traditions of there people anyways this being said i think you should check out
ANDROID RE-ENACTMENT w/ short films PUZZLEFACE and T IS FOR TESTOSTERONE REPLACEMENT THERAPY Saturday, December 3rd, Doors: 7:15pm, Films: 8:00pm, $10, Restricted. @ BLUE SUNSHINE PSYCHOTRONIC FILM CENTRE/ MONTREAL, QC