Here’s a view of Porte Parole’s 2nd Annual SPEAKeasy, as an impressionist painter of the Roaring 20s might have seen it… Held at the lovely Le Lion d’Or, our poker night gathered a bunch of fun-loving players who challenged one another and Lady Luck herself in order to claim great prizes while supporting a good cause: Porte Parole and its groundbreaking doc theatre. A winning combination. Those of you who missed it should bet on being there next year!
Leave your troubles at the door, and join us for a poppin’ night of poker, hooch and swinging tunes.
Here’s the lowdown:
What: A ritzy evening of poker and booze to support Porte Parole
When: Tuesday, January 17th, 2012, from 6:00 pm
Where: Le Lion D’or, 1676 Ontario East
How: $100 gets you a couple of booze tickets, some nibbles and a little poker dough ($1 500) to start you off (along with a $75 tax receipt).
6:00 pm: Welcome
7:00 pm: Poker
9:30 pm: End of silent auction
10:30 pm: End of poker tournament and winners’ announcements.
Check the dialog about it on this Facebook page.
A scene from Sexy béton. Photo: Robert Etcheverry
Porte Parole’s tour of Sexy béton finished with a flourish on December 4th in St-Jean-sur-le-Richelieu with an enthusiastic audience of over 400 people. Generally, the play inspired a keen interest everywhere it went – reaching over 2,000 spectators in 10 performances. Many audience members expressed gratitude for a play that portrays ordinary Quebec citizens attempting to navigate through today’s overly bureaucratic and prohibitively expensive justice system.
A few comments from the audience:
“Cette compagnie théâtrale n’a pas fini de faire des vagues.” Serge Côté
“J’y étais et c’était formidable! bravo!“ Josée Gosselin
“Bravo pour l’audace.“ Micheline Benoit.
A warm “thank you” to our audience. And thanks once again to the tour’s team and actors for the top-notch quality of their work.
Video: Andrew Krajewski
Viaduc de la Concorde, 09-2006
The following text by Annabel Soutar was published in The Gazette as a letter to the Editor:
4 years ago I decided to write a play called Sexy béton about the collapse of the de la Concorde overpass in Laval. Though I was moved by the tragic consequences of the incident, my decision to write a play was inspired by the poetic quality of this real story. A bridge is a symbol of connectedness. When a bridge falls down, it indicates a failure in the structures that support a middle ground between two disconnected entities. When a bridge called ‘Concorde’ – a Latin word meaning harmony – collapses, the universe is screaming out for someone to appreciate the resonance of the event. I remember asking myself the question back in 2006: “Is it possible that something broader than an overpass in Laval is crumbling in Quebec? What is our failing infrastructure trying to tell me about myself and about my relationship to society?”
Interestingly, I discovered, the de la Concorde overpass collapse was not the first instance of serious road system failure in Quebec, but it was the first event to really grab our attention. In 2000, the de Souvenir overpass above highway 15 fell down and killed one man, Gilbert Vinson. A Coroner’s Inquest into the incident did not provoke enough media attention to nourish our own interest in the tragedy beyond the initial gory, sensationalist details. The collapse of a structure called ‘Memory’ was, ironically, largely forgotten 6 years later when de la Concorde woke us up again.
When I started to research my play about de la Concorde by interviewing Transport Ministry engineers, officials involved in the Johnson Public Inquiry Commission, construction business executives, and specialists in bridge architecture, I always started with the question “Why do you think this structure fell down?” The responses I received all varied in terms of their content, but the subtext of each testimony was surprisingly consistent: de la Concorde’s collapse was ‘nobody’s fault, and was certainly not symptomatic of any deeper problems in our society. It was a “freak accident” that perhaps pointed to a need for more investment in infrastructure maintenance in the province, but it certainly did not reflect any broader political, cultural or ethical issues. Read More »
The Champlain Bridge, which connects Montreal and the suburban south shore, has emerged as one of the hottest issues in the current federal election. Practically everyone agrees (including the Liberals) that the federal government must hand over the approximately billion dollars it would take to replace what is the busiest bridge in Canada. “This bridge can be expected to collapse, partially or altogether, in a significant seismic event,” noted an engineering firm in a recent report.
Voilà un autre exemple qui démontre que le fédéral refuse d’accorder au Québec et à sa métropole un traitement équitable comparable à ce qu’il accorde aux métropoles des provinces. Here is yet another example that shows that the federal government refuses to give Quebec and its cities the same treatment as that of the cities in the other provinces. Gilles Duceppe. Read More »
Porte Parole invites you to SPEAKeasy a decadent, swanky, 1920s poker party featuring drinks, light hors d’oeuvres, raffle prizes, dancing to the jazzy stylings of DJ Myles Hainsworth and of course…. poker!
There will be two tiers of poker playing: you can play casually with professional dealers (we’ll even have a “Teach Table” if you want to learn the basics) and the top grosser at the end of the night will win a beautiful painting by Kai McCall! For the high rollers out there, we’ll have limited spots at 3 Tournament Tables, where you’ll be competing for the Grand Prize – 2 tickets behind the bench at an early 2011/12 Habs game – hosted by the Molson Brothers!
At the end of the poker playing, you can buy raffle tickets with your leftover chips. A few of the raffle prizes so far:
7pm Thursday February 24, 2011 • Poker begins promptly at 8pm
Le Lion D’Or, 1676 Ontario St. E., corner Papineau
Regular ticket: $100 • High Roller ticket: $200
Tax receipts for 75% of the ticket price will be issued.
Appropriate attire from the Roaring ‘20s is strongly encouraged
For more information, or to reserve your ticket, please email stephblanshay@hotmail.com
Sexy béton, among the Mirror’s Top 10 plays of 2010, is presented in French at TDP’s Salle Fred-Barry, February 9th to 26th. Reserve now! Ticket office: 514-253-8954
A bouquet of flowers left at the site of the broken overpass in 2006.
On this day in 2006, the de la Concorde overpass collapsed onto Highway 19 killing Mathieu Goyette, his pregnant girlfriend Véronique Binette, Jean-Pierre Hamel and his wife Sylive Beaudet, and his brother Gilles Hamel. 6 other people driving over the bridge were badly injured in the incident: Mohamed Ashraff Umberthambi, Louise Bédard, Paul Cousineau, Robert Hotte, Anne Leblanc, and Claude Bastien.
As far as I can see, not one major newspaper in Montreal or the English CBC has mentioned this important anniversary today. Sept 30th will therefore pass Montreal by without a moment of reflection about de la Concorde.
Photo by shmilblick
So September 30th is coming up again, this will be the fourth year since the fatal Concorde overpass collapse. What have we learned in four years? What is being done? What has changed? I regret to say that these pressing questions have gotten a bit dusty. While the Concorde victims and families will remember September 30th as a sad day, the end of a life or the end of the hope of pursuing justice in the legal realm, will Quebec citizens even remember the date? With the flurry of things happening in our world, it’s not surprising that this type of anniversary gets overlooked especially when the media seems to want to make sure there is nothing left to say about it. For example, last October, La Presse came out with an article to close the debate: “Concorde Overpass: The Victims Will Not Pursue”. That’s it, there’s nothing else to say except maybe that it’s the Prime Minister’s prerogative now to give the victims more money. So hopefully he’ll be thinking about Concorde on September 30th…
