At the Beginning of Time is a comedy-drama that presents an honest and stirring look at mortality. It touches on personal choices, reconciling the past, and how to live in the next phase of life. These are big questions but the show hits them with quick wit, ribald humour, and a nice dose of Montreal nostalgia.
The play focuses on three gay middle-aged men each with different lives based on their personal choices or through their ideas of what their sexuality means. While all of this can seem like a collection of life experiences remote to many people, the play’s examinations on themes of illness, death, loss, changing cultures, the passage of time are relatable to the audience.
Michael (Richard Jutras), Pat (Stephen Lawson), and Lou (Michael Miranda) are Italian-Montrealers, friends since high school. Michael, a successful screenwriter, is in a Montreal hospital after catching a virus while on holiday at an all-inclusive. Pat and Lou come to visit him. As they reminisce about their youthful shenanigans, the conversation turns serious when Michael informs them that his husband is in a CHSLD with advanced dementia. Although Michael is devoted to his spouse, he has a new boyfriend. Pat, a widower still mourning the loss his partner, cannot understand how Michael can love two people at once. He cannot and, sadly, does not want to open himself to the chance of love again. Lou, however, is unattached and lives a very carefree life but he’s become deeply cynical. He does what he wants, when he wants, and with who he wants. But he lacks courage to pursue new challenges. The nurse Nella (Nadia Verrucci) comes in to check on Michael. Coincidentally, she went to the same high school as the three men. She fills in the gaps in their memories and gives them good doses of wisdom. Michael comes across the brave one in the trio. He poignantly remembers the challenges the gay community had to face during their youth, such as the AIDS crisis. It made him live life to the fullest.
The cast is sharp and bring very distinctive qualities to their characters. The play flows very well in spite of occasional stumbles in the dialogue. The characters are likeable even when they are infuriating. To highlight the trips down memory lane, songs from the 70’s and 80’s are featured. The set is one room with a hospital bed and monitoring equipment. The walls are covered with colourful wallpaper of angels and cherubs flying around and hovering over the cast. It seems to symbolize that the souls of the past are always present.
How do you start again? The choices made in life are not set in stone. The possibility for new beginnings is there for the taking. And then, it seems life has started again.
Photo Credit: Andrée Lanthier
At the Beginning of Time. Written by Steve Galluccio. Directed by Peter Hinton-Davis. Show continues to March 12, at the Centaur Theatre, 453 St-François-Xavier, Old Montreal. For tickets call the box office at 514-288-3161 or go to www.centaurtheatre.com
