OUR OFFICIAL TRAILER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Do you think we're playing it sensationalist with this well-made video by Tom Mullins (sound), Terry Hughes (montage and photos), Ivan smith and Christine A.K (voices), or do we appear as if we've got an important message and want to be taken seriously?


Rahul has already talked about a movie (later on), translating the play in french, and bringing it to India...

From inside, I can tell you: we're serious about the work we do.

L'acteur Jean-Moïse Martin parle de Truth and Treason!

Merci Jean-Moïse!

Failed Democracies and the Wars They Wage, An Interview with Arianna Bardesono by Anna Fuerstenberg

Anna


Arianna

TRUTH AND TREASON is a new play by Rahul Varma, one of the most politically provocative playwrights in this country. I went to Teesri Duniya’s new rehearsal venue to interview the young director Arianna Bardesono with a sharpened pencil. Political theatre and directing are two of my personal obsessions. Like the old Diaghilev story, Ms Bardesono managed to astonish me.

I had mistakenly assumed that she was a novice who would not know a diagonal cross from a hot Fresnel. I was very wrong. Bardesono studied acting in Italy where she soon started to direct. She managed to adapt a novel, and working with a dramaturge, she had her first success. From there she went to England where she studied with a teacher of the Lecoq method, or as we know it here, very physical theatre. She followed up with the National Theatre of School of Canada, where she started in English and completed her studies in French, and she noted ironically that the two styles of teaching (and directing) were very different.

Due to her extensive experience with playwrights and dramaturges, she was truly enthusiastic about working on TRUTH AND TREASON. She directed a reading of it last November and has seen it through various rich and fruitful re-writes. In fact I was informed that the version being rehearsed while I waited for the interview, was brand new, and was being integrated as I watched.

Bardesono said that she felt at ease directing a work in progress, where the blocking is in continual flux. The most important thing was to focus on the characters and their very realistic relationships. The style of this play is very cinematic and she called it an action based play. Therefore it is naturalistic, and based on an historical event.

The young director said that her dream was to direct her version of Goethe’s Faust in Italian. She explained that working in a second or third language creates a kind of distance from the material and pointed out that communication with the playwright was yet another layer of language and its traps. She was fascinated by a play in which so many voices are heard and she was delighted with the multiculturalism of the cast.

This play has some of Montreal\s most accomplished actors. David Francis, Sarah Garton Stanley, Alex Ivanovici, as well as a distinguished multi-ethnic cast, promise to make this a provocative and inspiring evening of theatre.

The play, said Bardesono, is about “failed democracies” The United States being the foremost example. We are all complicit in their failure and also their victims. There is no such thing as a “modern war” people die, and whole cultures are bombed into oblivion, and t’were ever thus.

As Sartre said; “There are no villains, only victims and accomplices.”

see complete article: http://www.montrealserai.com/wp/news/

watch out for what we've got in here!

Hello, hello, hello... Hello!

Sorry for repeating myself a little, this is my heart's pace right now as -oh my God!- everything's happening at the same time. I love it, and I don't eat so much anymore. I drank way too much coffee this morning and my head might just explode.

ok watch this:

Did I tell you how multicultural we were in here? We've go a super team of people from Canada, Morocco, Lebanon, Botswana, Italy, Romania, India, and Switzerland!!!

On a un vrai Québécois francophone du milieu du théâtre: Jean-Moïse Martin. Et une designer Québecoise francophone: Ève-Line Leduc.

We've got amazing-experienced-people-from-Canadian-anglo-film-and-theatre backgrounds : David Francis and Sarah Garton Stanley (who's also a teacher at the NTS and at Concordia - I think that's right...)

We've got people who saw war, lived war, are concerned by war.

We've got a promo video of still photos (taken by Terry Hughes) with Ivan Smith's voice and photos of Christine and Abdel coming up in the beginning of next week!

We've got incredible people with incredible stories for the panel discussions! -to be posted soon.

WE'VE GOT A NEW WEB SITE FOR TEESRI COMING UP HOPEFULLY THIS MONDAY EVENING! It is colorfuly and beautifuly designed by a so so very dear friend of mine : Sarah Boutin. She crossed Central America with me!



She's from Lévis and lives in Québec -la ville- She's also married with a fellow from Morocco -and he's a good guy.

Watch out for the new web site!

Oh yeah! :)

ABDELGHAFOUR ELAAZIZ, talking against indifference!

I do not know Abdelghafour that much but he keeps saying 'je t'embrasse' in his e-mails and it feels all really humain and welcoming in this fast and furious moment of the production and PR thing -strangers being friends, not enemies... abdel is also sending a lot of info to all the actors by e-mail, about the topic of the play, beautiful and profound poems... And about the arab world in general.



from America, America
translated from the Arabic by Khaled Mattawa

I too love jeans and jazz and Treasure Island
and John Silver's parrot and the balconies of New Orleans.
I love Mark Twain and the Mississippi steamboats and Abraham Lincoln's dogs.
I love the fields of wheat and corn and the smell of Virginia tobacco.
But I am not American.

Is that enough for the Phantom pilot to turn me back to the stone age?
. . .
America:
let's exchange gifts. Take your smuggled cigarettes
and give us potatoes.
Take James Bond's golden pistol
and give us Marilyn Monroe's giggle.
Take the heroin syringe under the tree
and give us vaccines.
Take your blueprints for model penitentiaries
and give us village homes.
Take the books of your missionaries
and give us paper for poems to defame you.
Take what you do not have
and give us what we have.
Take the stripes of your flag
and give us the stars.
Take the Afghani Mujahideen beard
and give us Walt Whitman's beard filled with
butterflies.
Take Saddam Hussein
and give us Abraham Lincoln
or give us no one.

. . .
We are not hostages, America
and your soldiers are not God's soldiers ...
We are the poor ones, ours is the earth of the drowned gods,

the gods of bulls
the gods of fires
the gods of sorrows that intertwine clay and
blood in a song...
We are the poor, ours is the god of the poor
who emerges out of farmers' ribs
hungry
and bright,
and raises heads up high...

America, we are the dead.
Let your soldiers come.
Whoever kills a man, let him resurrect him.
We are the drowned ones, dear lady.
We are the drowned.
Let the water come.
Saadi Youssef

Emilee Veluz and Rahul Varma read scene 7 at Indyish's 3rd anniversary!

I do not no if Indyish's 3rd anniversary was the best place to bring my mom-from-a-tiny-village-on-the-south-side-of-Quebec-city to (and my visiting builder brother with big arms and his pregnant girlfriend from west Canada) but my mom said she wanted to know what I was doing AND it was, as described below, an inspiring moment for me:

- Young people have a place to express themselves and hang together in a creative environment, not just just dance and drink and sit on a couch --fighting 'inactivity'!

- It is mostly music, but there was also artworks all around the place ; big impressive paintings with sentences that stay in and have the power to bring you into unexplored territories of yourself:

'strong people don’t need strong leaders' Ella Josephine Baker

- Rahul and Emilee got a chance to give a call, they were hot and meaningful. Thanks to the Indyish people! :

Sarah Garton Stanley about Truth and Treason

Sarah is great -she has so much 'meaningfulness' to communicate, but she can also hear and see and act more than most people I know.

things move

Things move. Wow. I love when things move. I am filled with happiness and pride and many feelings that I can't exactly put my finger on,yet -when things move.

Today, it felt like there was a tornado of people wanting change!

Today, I thought, 'but we are not the only onessss.' Today, I met with Martine Eloy from the collective Echec à la Guerre, and it was enlivening, then I met with more and more people and my excitement got stucked into a spiral of wanting to go faster and faster and shine more!

Let's change ok!? Because we are so many who want it, and we just don't know each other! We're a little shy or despaired or desillusionned or hurt or mad or pessimistic or uncertain or cynical or scared, that's all.

First week of rehearsal through the eyes of Ivan Smith and Indyish this week end!

Here is Ivan Smith, actor in the production of Truth and Treason. Thank you for letting us know about your experiences and thoughts - how lucky we are.



REMINDER: THIS WEEKEND, RAHUL WILL TALK ABOUT THE SCRIPT AND READ A SHORT EXCERPT WITH EMILEE VELUZ (SHE ACTED IN MS. ORIENTED FOR TEESRI)AT AN EVENT ORGANIZED BY INDYISH = WE MADE A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL. COME!!! WE WILL BE THERE ON THE 15th, IF YOU COME AT 8PM, YOU WILL SEE US, WE'LL BE RIGHT AFTER THE FIRST ACT.

Here's some info (Part of.. Well most of, Indyish's press release!):



“We Made a Deal with the Devil & Indyish is 3 Years old!”
The next Indyish Monthly Mess is produced in partnership with Methinks Presents.
Place: 435 Beaubien West, Centre Chat Bleu, 4th floor [2 blocks west of Parc ave]
Date + Time: on Saturday August 15 8pm and Sunday August 16 from 4-6pm.

“We’re celebrating three years of independent artists coming together”, says Risa Dickens, co-founder of Indyish. “And what better way to do just that than partner with Methinks on their 16 stop art tour, and link it up with the crazy collaborative art + circus + boxing community we work with at the Chat Bleu!”

“METHINKS is bringing their traveling visual and performing art show, ‘We Made a Deal with the Devil’, to Montreal,” says Paul Aflalo, Indyish Producer “and we’re so excited to have them! Performing art antics and dozens of devil drawings and more!”

We Made a Deal with the Devil is a cultural expedition, touring art show, video project and tour blog – check it out at www.methinkspresents.org.

We’re going to have a remarkable show on Saturday August 15, with great performances from Nista (indie electro Swedes? Yes please: www.myspace.com/nistamus), Gypsy fire from Briga (www.myspace.com/briga123), and irony to make you dance your face off by Commodore84 (www.myspace.com/COM84A1) and Garbageface (www.myspace.com/garbagefacemusic), and a brand new collaboration between Franco Proietti (The Franco Proietti Morph-tet) and Brie Nielson (The Unsettlers) a Billie Holiday Tribute like you’ve never seen.

In addition, Rahul Varma the artistic director off Montreal’s celebrated Teesri Duniya theatre company – committed to “socially and politically relevant theatre that supports a multicultural vision of society” – will be presenting a special preview of his new production, ‘Truth and Treason,’ exclusively for our audiences. ‘Truth and Treason‘ takes place in Iraq and, in part, is about what could drive a person toward accepting a suicide mission, it is about the devil with whom we make deals in ourselves, and in our culture.

For more information, please visit www.indyish.com.

A US soldier talks about the Iraq war

What's your opinion about this video?

This week, actors, playwright and director are doing table work... Talking and working on the script and discussing our post 9/11 world situation...

A song and a message from Abdel, our actor

Salam Stephanie, Salam everybody,
Do you like listening to radio? I love this medium and I rarely watch TV. There is too much mise en scene on TV in opposition to listening to the radio which allows you to imagine what you want...So let's play the radio and I will be the animator...
Ladies and gentlemen, today I will take you in a trip to the other side of the Atlantic...we will go to Marrakech to listen to the GNAWA music. It s a style of Moroccan music developed by sub-Saharian Africans who came there many centuries ago. The song is called " My Trance" and is made in Montreal by Said Mesnaoui and Transe Gnawa. This music of The Maghreb can find its echo in Baghdad where the events of TRUTH AND TREASON take place. In other words, the trance can be a way to forget momentarily the inability of millions of people to understand what is happening around. It happens often that we discuss with friends there the current wars in the area and the political, economic, social situation in the Arab World trying to clarify the reasons of the depressing reality, and you talk, you talk, you talk finishing the discussion every time with the same statement " Oh! My God! It s complicated", having a bitter taste in the mouth!!! The discussion becomes a way of trance too!!!
So, when you see that the dreams of the majority of your people are shattered, that pseudo-modern political systems are always waiting for orders from powerful countries, that millions of innocents are victims of stupid conflicts and wars, come and join our TRANCE...but not like an ostrich which hides the head in the sand ...Join the trance, to dance , to get energy, and to continue the fight...Sure, our radio is too idealist but is near to the TRUTH and disgusts TREASON...
You'll hear at the beginning of the recording a statement in Arabic. I translate it " Look! Look my dear! my name is Abdelghafour Elaaziz, and, you are listening, now, to Dan Behrman , Espace Musique, Radio Canada,,,,I swear! I swear!) wallah wallah.
Thank you for your attention dear audience...thank you Stef...
Abdelghafour Elaaziz
With Dan Behrman's permission to use the song... Thanks Dan.

SAÏD MESNAOUI.
source:http://www.radio-canada.ca/radio2/artistes/434.shtml

Beautiful, beautiful, caring for the future of our race; beautiful

This weekend I did some Kayak on a beautiful lake, surrounded by beautiful trees, with my beautiful aunt and I slept at my beautiful grand-father's place, who's just working really hard all the time, even after his big operation 2 weeks ago. I saw the lastest Harry Potter and was quite upset, about so much power given to the dark forces- Harry, stop them! Because you're a light, it's your responsability... Thought about the beautiful Kayak and the beautiful nature again: I love nature and I love them.



A significant quote from our Director:

Riding the refreshing ‘wind of change’ brought by Obama’s presidency and acknowledging the enlightened mood that has spread among other world leaders; being aware of the growing threat of nuclear weapons and space militarization, and of the many difficulties that our planet is presently facing; caring for the future of our race and for the present safety of our dears: Truth and Treason is a play not to miss.

Tomorrow: Workshop starts...