Michel Tremblay's Albertine in Five Times will have two staged reading performances at the Actors Theatre Playhouse on Saturdays August 8 and 15 at 7:30 p.m.
Staged readings enable actors to sit with script in hand for a fully realized and rehearsed performance - minus the scenery and the staging.
Michel Tremblay's well-loved and award-winning play Albertine in Five Times presents the story of one woman, Albertine, played simultaneously by five actresses at five different times in her life.
Each of the five different actresses represents a decade in Albertine's life, simultaneously interacting onstage, battling, squabbling, and sharing a lifetime of limited happiness and blame and guilt.
The older Albertine warns the younger ones of what is to come – “Our fate depends on you,” Albertine at 70 says to Albertine at 30.
Together, these five actresses provide a moving portrait of the extraordinary life of an “ordinary” woman. This new, updated translation by Linda Gaboriau, commissioned for the prestigious Shaw Festival, celebrates the 25 years this classic Canadian drama has intrigued and delighted audiences around the world.
Playhouse director Burt Tepfer says, “Memory looms large as a theme, both confusing and enlightening the past. I found it an absolutely fascinating concept to be able to have a discussion with yourself at various times in your life. If we truly understood ourselves and our situation at various points in our lives, would we be more at peace with our past, and our future?”
Featured in the cast are Nancy Stephens, Pat Langille, Nan Mann, Bridget McBride, Rachel Durante, and Mo Hart.