Theatre/Film

On October 25th, there will be a short theatrical presentation with Heather Markgraf at the Village Theatre followed by a talk with playwright Colleen Curran.

Colleen Curran is a Montreal playwright, novelist, CBC dramatist, actor, performer and screenwriter. Her plays have been widely produced across Canada and the USA. Her comedies which premiered at the Blyth Festival are: Cake-Walk, Moose County, Miss Balmoral of the Bayview, Local Talent, Ceili House and Villa Eden. Her play Sacred Hearts, which she adapted for CBC Morningside, won an international Gabriel Award. Other works include In the Country of the Blue, Mothers of the Year, Casa de Mary Margaret, El Clavadista and Another Labour Day (winner, best new play, Quebec Drama Federation) and Something Drastic adapted from her first novel about Montreal singing waitress Lenore Rutland. Her other novels, also published by Goose Lane Editions, are Overnight Sensation and Guests of Chance (October 2005). She was playwright in residence at Centaur Theatre and is co-artistic director of the Triumvirate Theatre Company. She has taught playwriting all over North America and taught a comedy workshop at the National Theatre School of Canada.

This year, as part of StoryFest, the film 'Barney's Version' starring Paul Giamatti, will be shown at Hudson's Village Theatre on October 24th at 7:30pm. Special guest Joel Yanofsky will be present for the 7:30pm showing.

Synopsis

Based on Mordecai Richler’s prize-winning comic novel – his last and, arguably, best – Barney’s Version is the warm, wise, and witty story of Barney Panofsky, (Paul Giamatti), a seemingly ordinary man who lives an extraordinary life. A candid confessional, told (as its title implies), entirely from Barney’s point of view, the film spans four decades and two continents, taking us through the many highs, and a few too many lows, of our hero’s long and colourful life. The reason that Barney must tell his story now – or, at least his version of it – is that his sworn enemy has just published a tell-all book that dredges up the more compromising chapters of Barney’s past: the many, often murky entrepreneurial schemes that lead to his success; the three marriages, all of them terminated; and, most problematically, the mysterious, as-of-yet-unsolved disappearance of Barney’s best friend, Boogie, a possible murder for which Barney remains the prime suspect. Since his memory sometimes fails him, and because he has the unfortunate habit of getting blind drunk at pivotal moments, Barney leads us on this somewhat unsteady walk down memory lane, not only to explain his life to others, but also to explain it to himself.

This award-winning film also stars Rosamund Pike, Minnie Driver, Rachelle Lefevre, Scott Speedman, and Dustin Hoffman.

Joel Yanofsky is a literary journalist, book reviewer, Concordia professor, and author of three books: a collection of comic essays, Homo Erectus...And Other Popular Tales of True Romance (Signature), the novel Jacob's Ladder (Porcupine's Quill), and the highly acclaimed biography Mordecai & Me: An Appreciation of a Kind (Red Deer Press). Joel Yanofsky lives in Montreal with his wife and son.