Pictured: Louise Pitre
27 SEPT 2013
R: 4/5
There are, as any performer will tell you, so very many ways to get naked on stage -- and in ON THE ROCKS, Louise Pitre flirts with many of them. But lest you think the great grande dame of Toronto musical theatre has chosen to take up burlesque in her 50s, a few explanations might be in order.
For openers, for much of her new show, la Pitre is dressed ever-so demurely -- strutting a stylish and stylishly tailored tuxedo that, nonetheless, does little to hide her celebrated curves, setting it all off with a pert and pretty pixie cut that suits her silver tresses to a tee. And while she opens the show (which premiered in very limited run Wednesday at Theatre Passe Muraille) with fond reminiscences of frequent topless appearances, those occasions were, it should be added, all pre-1964, when she was but a free-spirited pre-pubescent in Montreal.
From there, Pitre takes us first on a tour of childhood memories, often using them to illuminate the present -- ON THE ROCKS, is in fact, illustrated by her own childhood drawings, and even her Barbie doll makes a special guest appearance.
But, finally, it is the more recent past that is the focus of her show and that's a good thing. For, much as we love her, we only really know her as the hugely talented performer who stole our hearts and often broke them in everything from Les Misérables to her Tony-nominated turn in Mamma Mia!
ON THE ROCKS changes all that, for after she's dealt with her teen years in Welland, Pitre launches us on a voyage through not only her professional triumphs, and her failures too, both personal and professional. All of it is interspersed with a bouquet of highly personal songs, some written and composed by her alone, some in which she shares credits with husband W. Joseph Matheson, with whom she is clearly still most happily smitten.
But if you're looking for a show in which the names of friends and colleagues, both famous and infamous, drop like anvils, this isn't. In ON THE ROCKS, Pitre opts to focus on herself and not her famous friends, talking candidly and movingly about her chaotic love life, pre-Matheson -- a failed marriage and numerous failed relationships, taking credit where she feels it is due and shouldering her share of the blame where she feels its appropriate. She shares not only her dreams but her nightmares too -- the death of her father and her beloved mother's approaching end, both now lost to her in the cruelest of ways. And she talks about her own decision to sacrifice motherhood for her career.
In short, she talks about herself, stripping herself emotionally bare, as if to say not only: "This is me," but "These are songs from my heart," as well. And when she sings, she pours that heart into everything with often deeply moving effect, just like she always has, and though one might finally wish she and her director/ pianist, Diane Leah, had chosen to explore a musically more varied emotional palette, she ties it all together and makes it work. ON THE ROCKS is Pitre, straight up, and certainly, as usual, with a twist.
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