887 @ EICC, 14 Aug
887 is an enthralling show about memory and forgetting – not the sort of epic we have come to expect from the Ex Machina company, but a charming, intimate encounter with artistic director Robert Lepage
It's part lecture; a scientific analysis of memory, but also involves story-telling, drama and technological wizardry.
A giant doll’s house with animated figures in the windows (which Lepage twirls to reveal interiors he can step into), shadow puppetry and an electronic Lincoln toy car all help Lepage re-enact childhood memories, in particular the taxi-driver father he hero-worships but hardly ever sees. There is a strong current of Quebec history, all seen through a child’s partial point of view. For instance, the Front de libération du Québec's fight for freedom from British rule in the 60s and 70s – the sound of a bomb was merely a background noise to him, aged 12, setting off fire-crackers in a dustbin.
Hilarous encounters with Fred, a failed actor, allow Lepage to show off his physical theatre skills and a self-depreciatory joke about his meagre ‘cold cut’ (prepared obituary) – how he himself will be remembered. Lepage needs Fred’s acting tips to memorize Lalonde’s Speak White, an iconic poem relevant to the suppression of Francophones in Quebec. His faltering memory transforms into a passionate word-perfect rendition leaving us in no doubt as to Lepage’s belief in social justice.
Particularly moving is his grandmother’s onset of Alzheimer's and, at her death, his father’s return to ‘work’ to hide in his taxi; a stunning image of its headlights blurring our view of the weeping father.