We are currently a few short days away from the third show of the 2024–2025 Motyer-Fancy Theatre (MFT) season and their final show of 2024: Albertine in Five Times. The play with an all-female cast tells the story of a lower-class Québécois woman named Albertine in conflict with different versions of herself: Albertine at the age of 30, 40, 50, 60, and 70 years old. “We see her at five stages of her life […] talk[ing] to herself, discussing her life and confessing,” commented Skylar Côté, third-year music major and assistant director of the show.
Albertine is Côté’s debut as an assistant director, working with Paul Griffin, a part-time Lecturer in the drama Department and lead director of the show. She describes her job as a “sounding board,” taking notes during the rehearsals and communicating them to Griffin and the actors. Going into her new role, she shared, “it was hard trying to figure out what I am able to do in a rehearsal but now that we have gone further along, I finally started to understand my role as an assistant director.” However, Côté did not go into the process completely blind; she worked closely with an assistant director Sarah Tardif, 2024 Mt. A. drama alum, on the MFT’s spring 2024 production of The Juliet Project, which Griffin adapted and directed.
Côté also found working with Griffin a smooth transition and a very enjoyable process. Both of them are passionate about theatre and love to talk contributing to the ease of their communication and the development of ideas. Acting in Griffin’s directorial debut at Mt. A, in 7 Stories in spring of 2023, a comedic piece of mask theatre, helped to make the communication between them and the actors in Albertine clearer. “Now working on a darker show, I understand what his mind is doing,” she added.
The role of assistant director is a new experience for Côté, who has been learning a lot about theatre from this different perspective. When previously working primarily as an actor, Côte never had a chance to dissect the reasons actors speak and act the way they do on stage. Being an assistant director, she “finds it easier to pick up on the nuances of the actors, a speech or an acting pattern, take notes on that and apply that to [her] work.”
The play is an important piece of theatre for the feminist movement, as pointed out by the actors and the crew. “Specifically now, it is important to show how strong women can be,” commented Côté. She sees Albertine as a strong and independent female character that is able to demonstrate how strong women can be and that “having rage is not a bad thing.”
The theme of feminism comes up, not only on stage for the audience, but also in the rehearsal environment. Phoebe Rex, a third-year classics and drama student, and one of the actors in Albertine, “appreciated the fact that [the] director ensured that the female voices in the room were allowed to have a significant say in the process, because the story of Albertine is that of a woman who has everything in the world against her.”
Putting Albertine in Five Times on stage was also important to Griffin. He familiarized himself with the play 30 years ago and has been wanting to do it ever since. Griffin’s goal for the show is to introduce an “analysis of a person who university students may not have a background with.” He shared that Albertine is from the lower class of Quebec and “the world has been an anchor around her neck,” some of it being the effects of living in a patriarchal and misogynistic society in the second half of the 20th century.
Albertine in Five Times is premiering at the Motyer-Fancy Theatre on Wednesday, December 4 at 7:30 p.m. and closes on December 7. Be sure to get your tickets early through eventbrite (https://www.eventbrite.com/e/albertine-in-five-times-motyer-fancy-theatre-tickets-1073811070819) or by visiting the @dramamta Instagram page. For more information or any questions, email [email protected]. Bring a friend and indulge in Albertine’s intriguing life story.
