MONTREAL MIRROR ______________________________________
OUT OF TOWN THEATRE April 6-12 2003
Walls Of the Fantasy Woman: Catherine Black speaks up
by SCOTT HUOT
Tristan, Euripides, Orestes, J. Alfred Prufrock, all live again in the shy Mr. Pym(Layne Colmen). Resentful in his longing, sleepwalking through an outwardly solitary life in bookish academe, painfully absent, He lives in a rich fantasy life that focuses on the shape-changing Woman who inhabits his dreams and destroys his reality-Catherine Black.
Now into it’s 6th sold out week; the remounted Dora Magnet; Walls Of Africa, we catch up with the Fantasy Woman herself, Catherine Black on her whirlwind 23 hour sprint to Montreal. Catherine is here for a dress fitting for her next film, on her one day off this week. This girl is hot and yet so cool as she sips her stout at a dive bar on St Laurent. Dressed in jeans and a t-shirt it is hard to imagine Catherine giggling in a buurka, pouring beer on her breast, haunting us with an undeniably fierce and erotic dance as she kicks off the show each night.
I saw Catherine perform in Walls of Africa and was immediately bewitched. Catherine’s allure is her absolutely subtle and genuinely sexy performance. Seemingly unaware of her silent strengths on stage she opens the show with such a ball grabbing presence which she maintains through the entire show, leaving us shattered with her absence; such is the job of a Fantasy Woman. Mr. Pym never had a chance. This three hander is already an all star cast with veterans Layne Coleman and Dora’s granddaughter and winner Tedde Moore, but the show is truly illuminated by Catherine’s performance.
“This role has opened me up to my power as a woman, I mean Fantasy woman! How on earth can one live up to that? Of course the words and direction only gave me the perfect forum to be the perfect woman in all her aspects, but I was so terrified of this burden I had to live up to” She laughs infectiously as she explains. “however, as specific as Hrant was about the character, he did give me all the freedom in the world to explore and create myself as my own perfect fantasy woman without any boundaries in his very very specific vision.”
And catherine did indeed fill the stage, the role and each hat that she was asked to wear; because as we all know, men’s fantasy’s are very complex, subject to change and easily found routine, and Catherine managed to be intuitively aware of this. She wore every shoe, and not just as a cliche`, she actually managed to be so many different woman, which is what is so extraordinary about her performance. She just was these woman.
“What a treat to explore so many versions of myself and woman for that matter and what it is to be sexy. Of course there is the visual, which was where Hrant was very very very specific (uncontrollable laughter). The librarian, the mother, the whore, the seducer, belly dancer, hag, the princess, what have you, that is what you see, but as a woman, these were roles I had to embody, and that was what was most enjoyable and most challenging and to fit that into the context of the play which is essentially about loneliness and longing. Walls of Africa is the saddest play in the world!...the music, the words, each scene was so beautifully sad. I love that! Sadness that just is, not horrible, not to be denied, but explored in a way that makes it beautiful; like Tom Waits or Beethoven or Paris! That is what going to the theater each night to perform Walls is like for me, like being in Paris in the 40’s listening to Beethoven and having a whiskey with Waits; my favorite acting experience to date.”
OUT OF TOWN THEATRE April 6-12 2003
Walls Of the Fantasy Woman: Catherine Black speaks up
by SCOTT HUOT
Tristan, Euripides, Orestes, J. Alfred Prufrock, all live again in the shy Mr. Pym(Layne Colmen). Resentful in his longing, sleepwalking through an outwardly solitary life in bookish academe, painfully absent, He lives in a rich fantasy life that focuses on the shape-changing Woman who inhabits his dreams and destroys his reality-Catherine Black.
Now into it’s 6th sold out week; the remounted Dora Magnet; Walls Of Africa, we catch up with the Fantasy Woman herself, Catherine Black on her whirlwind 23 hour sprint to Montreal. Catherine is here for a dress fitting for her next film, on her one day off this week. This girl is hot and yet so cool as she sips her stout at a dive bar on St Laurent. Dressed in jeans and a t-shirt it is hard to imagine Catherine giggling in a buurka, pouring beer on her breast, haunting us with an undeniably fierce and erotic dance as she kicks off the show each night.
I saw Catherine perform in Walls of Africa and was immediately bewitched. Catherine’s allure is her absolutely subtle and genuinely sexy performance. Seemingly unaware of her silent strengths on stage she opens the show with such a ball grabbing presence which she maintains through the entire show, leaving us shattered with her absence; such is the job of a Fantasy Woman. Mr. Pym never had a chance. This three hander is already an all star cast with veterans Layne Coleman and Dora’s granddaughter and winner Tedde Moore, but the show is truly illuminated by Catherine’s performance.
“This role has opened me up to my power as a woman, I mean Fantasy woman! How on earth can one live up to that? Of course the words and direction only gave me the perfect forum to be the perfect woman in all her aspects, but I was so terrified of this burden I had to live up to” She laughs infectiously as she explains. “however, as specific as Hrant was about the character, he did give me all the freedom in the world to explore and create myself as my own perfect fantasy woman without any boundaries in his very very specific vision.”
And catherine did indeed fill the stage, the role and each hat that she was asked to wear; because as we all know, men’s fantasy’s are very complex, subject to change and easily found routine, and Catherine managed to be intuitively aware of this. She wore every shoe, and not just as a cliche`, she actually managed to be so many different woman, which is what is so extraordinary about her performance. She just was these woman.
“What a treat to explore so many versions of myself and woman for that matter and what it is to be sexy. Of course there is the visual, which was where Hrant was very very very specific (uncontrollable laughter). The librarian, the mother, the whore, the seducer, belly dancer, hag, the princess, what have you, that is what you see, but as a woman, these were roles I had to embody, and that was what was most enjoyable and most challenging and to fit that into the context of the play which is essentially about loneliness and longing. Walls of Africa is the saddest play in the world!...the music, the words, each scene was so beautifully sad. I love that! Sadness that just is, not horrible, not to be denied, but explored in a way that makes it beautiful; like Tom Waits or Beethoven or Paris! That is what going to the theater each night to perform Walls is like for me, like being in Paris in the 40’s listening to Beethoven and having a whiskey with Waits; my favorite acting experience to date.”
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