Tom McCamus (4/06 Mathilde)
Excerpt from Now Toronto 4/13/06: Tom McCamus | Pictures on Nightwood Theatre
Spring Guide: On the Money
by Jon Kaplan, Glenn Sumi April 13, 2006 12:00 AM
Labouring love's loss
A marriage in crisis is common, but Véronique Olmi's Mathilde paints a striking picture of a husband and wife split apart by the wife's sexual desire and the unusual lover she's taken. Forced to deal with tension, hurt and resentment, the two wonder if they still feel love for each other. Translated by Morwyn Brebner and directed by Kelly Thornton, this Nightwood production features Martha Burns and Tom McCamus as the couple trying to reconnect with their early passion. Previews from April 28, opens May 3 and runs to May 27 at the Young Centre (55 Mill). 416-866-8666.
© Now Toronto
Excerpt from Now Magazine 4/27/06 Tom McCamus
Repairing a pair: Mathilde traces a couple's relationship after a controversial affair
By JON KAPLAN
But in Véronique Olmi's Mathilde, the latest production by Nightwood Theatre, the affair and its aftermath are marked by a passion and, ironically, a starkness that make the script far from ordinary. The play starts in the middle of a tense confrontation: Mathilde has returned home after months away to collect her things and deal with her husband, Pierre. "That opening is one of the things I find exciting about the play," says Tom McCamus, who plays Pierre to Martha Burns's Mathilde. "You only slowly discover who these two people are, what their relationship is and where Mathilde has been.
"The surprises for the viewer come pretty fast in the script's first 15 pages."
And audiences aren't the only ones dealing with surprise. Pierre is both astonished and confused when he sees his wife. "He can't believe she's come back, for one thing," offers the actor, who's just finished a run in The Innocent Eye Test and is as well known for his work on stage (Richard III, Peter Pan), film (The Sweet Hereafter, I Love A Man In Uniform) and TV (Waking Up Wally: The Walter Gretzky Story). "He also starts from the assumption that she's done the wrong thing, and he feels a righteousness that allows him to accuse Mathilde for her actions. He's amazed when she turns the accusation back on him and says she's done nothing wrong."
Mathilde's fervour burns brightly throughout the hour-long piece, especially in her attempt to describe her feelings for her lover. And under the surface, Pierre shows his own brand of tension, though Mathilde accuses him of being no more than tepid. "The trouble is that Pierre, an oncologist, runs his life intellectually," explains McCamus. "Still, I think he's a passionate man who believes strongly in his ideals and the fixed structure of the world.
"Treating people with cancer, he's forced to deal with emotions every day, being aware of what his patients are going through but not being affected by them. He just doesn't deal with anyone's feelings in an obvious manner."
The script has a series of emotional levels, he adds, a quality that's captured in Morwyn Brebner's translation from the original French. "I think this English version has a Parisian feel," continues McCamus, who spent a combined 15 years at Shaw and Stratford. "It has to do with a sophistication, a subdued passion, but at the same time a fast back-and-forth exchange between husband and wife.
"They've been together for 13 years, so Martha and I are working on finding that married shorthand that people have, that sense of being able to refer to something that happened years back with just a word or an image."
The two actors have worked together before, though never on a two-hander. They shared the stage in Sweet Bird Of Youth and Long Day's Journey Into Night, and their films include the O'Neill script, Hindsight and Siblings. "It's good that we have that background," admits McCamus, "because a play like Mathilde requires that the actors share a strong emotional connection both in the words and what's happening beneath them. This is a play where a lot is left unsaid.
"Pierre especially is someone who sits on his feelings a lot of the time, and as an actor I have to figure out when to go for the emotion and when to back off. You can't push it too far, can't play it all with the same emotional intensity."
© Now Magazine
Excerpt from Canada.com 4/28/06: Tom McCamus
Exalting Mathilde
By National Post April 28, 2006
Mathilde, French playwright Veronique Olmi's dissection of a marriage in crisis, opens tomorrow in Toronto starring the dream team of Martha Burns and Tom McCamus, Stratford and Shaw Festival veterans and Genie and Dora winners both.
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Q The last time I saw Tom McCamus, he was playing a master thief with a hilarious mock French accent on Ken Finkleman's At the Hotel. Is he keeping the accent for Mathilde?
A The play takes place in France, but they don't speak in French accents. Some translations, they completely write the culture out of the play. It was a choice for Morwyn and Veronique to keep the characters named Mathilde and Pierre, not Matilda and Peter.
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- Mathilde opens in previews Friday and runs until May 27 at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts. Tickets and information at (416) 866-8666 and www.nightwoodtheatre.net.
© Canada.com
Excerpt from Toronto Life 5/1/06: Tom McCamus
Theatre.(This Month)
Toronto Life | May 1, 2006 | Scott, Alec
MATHILDE. Morwyn Brebner (The Optimists) translates French playwright Veronique Olmi's poignant, tough-minded play about a wife in midlife crisis and the husband she hates and loves-and hates. Martha Burns (the diva in Slings &Arrows) goes up against lean, rakish Tom McCamus (his generations quintessential Richard III), the theatrical equivalent of King Kong vs. Godzilla. Directed by Kelly Thornton. May 3 to 27; in previews from April 28. $28-$32; previews $15. Young Centre for the Performing Arts, Distillery District, 55 Mill St.
© Toronto Life
Excerpt from Eye Weekly 5/4/06: Tom McCamus
Cougar Party
GORD McLAUGHLIN
In Mathilde's case, society jails her for four months for seducing a minor. The play opens as just-released Mathilde returns home to confront her husband (Tom McCamus). Burns says she was attracted by the intensity of the writing, translated here by Dora-winning Morwyn Brebner. It crosses lines that few couples transgress even in private, says Burns, yet any couple will find some resonance and even humour in this primal marital scene.
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MATHILDE RUNS TO MAY 27 AT THE YOUNG CENTRE FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS, 55 MILL. $28-$32 PLUS LIMITED $10 RUSH SEATS. MON-SAT 8PM; TUE 1PM; WED & SAT 2PM. 416-866-8666.
© Eye Weekly
Excerpt from Canada.com 5/20/06: Tom McCamus
More plays currently on stage
By National PostMay 20, 2006
MATHILDE
Young Centre for the Performing Arts
55 Mill St. - 416-866-6666
The depth and texture of a marriage are present in this French play (by Veronique Olmi, excellently translated by Morwyn Brebner) as in few others. In Kelly Thornton's flawless production, Martha Burns plays a writer who has served 15 months for seducing a minor, and Tom McCamus is her ruffled, apparently pragmatic oncologist-husband. Each is an expert at finding the other's tenderest points; tenderness flares up as well. Through May 27.
© Canada.copy