Illusions

Four actors of different mother tongues tell the story of two married couples. Coloured by accents, the language becomes collaborative. These four narrators take us on a tangled journey of love and death, loyalty and chaos, truth and fiction. All they ask of the audience is to listen.

Manolis Antoniou, a Greek-born, polyglot artist, takes us on a fascinating exploration of our relationship to language. Linguistic diversity is a central element of the Ottawa region, where cultures meet and where politics colour our experience of the landscape. Despite its ubiquity, Antoniou examines a facet of language not often addressed in French-language theater: the accent. The intangible. Through our accents, language becomes collaborative. As we cross boundaries between first, second, third, and even fourth languages, there is a constant undercurrent — a negotiation through accent. As one speaks, the other listens, following the shape of the mouth, tracing turns of phrase, asking to repeat, ou répéter.

This is a bilingual show with English and French surtitles.