Marie Brassard is BRILLIANT in 'Jimmy' @ Centaur.

An AMAZING, INNOVATIVE, ORIGINAL, CREATION. Infrarouge presents "Jimmy" Marie Brassard's most masterful creation in English, the evocative solo-show about dreams and desire, Jimmy. She is engaging from the moment we enter the space. Her portrayal of the central character is stunning believable so we immediately empathize with his dilemma and sorrowful plight. She delivers a memorable performance worthy of the three curtain call standing ovation she received on opening night. Performed around the world since its creation in 2001, Jimmy is a beautifully haunting tour-de-force. In it Brassard plays a homosexual hairdresser Jimmy, who came to life in the dream of a homophobic American general in the 1950’s. It is in his salon that Jimmy meets Mitchell, a soldier that he falls deeply in love with. At the exact moment Jimmy is about to kiss the soldier he loves for the first time, the general's heart stops beating and Jimmy remains suspended, frozen in time in that precise moment, filled with an exquisite sensation of pure pleasure.

Fifty years later, time starts ticking again and Jimmy comes back to life, this time, to his despair, imprisoned in the dreams of a Montreal actress who falls in love with him. In the actress's wild, erotic and absurd dreams, his face and body are transformed, metamorphosing him into a strange creature of uncertain gender. His most ardent desire is to escape the logic of the dreams that imprison him so he can finally find his way back to his lost love.

For several years, Marie Brassard’s career was linked with that of the director Robert Lepage. With him she elaborated concepts, wrote and performed in films and stage plays. Initiating her exploration of the use of sound, she created her first solo play Jimmy, créature de Rêve, 2001. With her more recent work: The Darkness (2003), Peepshow (2005) and The Invisible (2008) she continued her technological investigation, interweaving voices and soundtracks, shifting between levels of reality, bringing us face to face with a world where the boundaries between public and private are increasingly fluid and the relationship between individuals and technology is increasingly intimate. Establishing herself as a unique voice in contemporary theatre, her work, has been presented in English and French in several cities all over Americas, Europe and Australia.

My production picky pen notes: I recommend sitting at least in row five or higher from the stage. I would have preferred to see this production much more in an intimate performance space. The piece is so intimate that the staging here only distances the audience from connecting with the artist's performance and the character. I would have enjoyed some more creative lighting design, it was rather simplistic and could have been much more. There should also have been some post-show exit music for the audience. From a production-marketing perspective: Just a one week runs for such a piece doesn't allow for building the audience through reviews and word of mouth. Since it runs only '70 minutes' possibly two productions could have been scheduled to be performed the same evenings, like 7pm and 9pm. Finally, for English theatre goers they may find the ticket price to be a bit too steep $37-$27. for most of the potential audience members during this heavy loaded theatre calendar period; Also when considering it is a one person solo art piece performance of under 75 minutes.

'Jimmy' Written, directed and performed by Marie Brassard @ Centaur, to November 28 8:30pm. GO C IT!

It is too bad that the production wasn't scheduled to be performed alternately with 'The Glass Eye" the 2nd production, that was to be presented next week by the same company and has now been postpone indefinitely.