The PLEIADES THEATRE
presents the premiere of John Van Burek's translation of
The Game of Love and Chance
A Classic Comedy of Disguise and Entanglement
Written by Marivaux
Directed by John Van Burek
Set and costume designer: Andjelija Djuric
Lighting designer: Paul Mathiesen

Lisette: Colombe Demers
Monsieur Orgon: Oliver Dennis
Mario: Scott Nichol
Monsieur Orgon's Valet: Adam Paolozza
Harlequin: Alex Poch-Goldin
Silvia: Amy Price-Francis
Dorante: Graeme Somerville

previews from May 5, opens May 10, runs to May 28, 2000

Artword Theatre, 75 Portland Street
Box Office: (416) 408-ARTD (2783)

Previews: $12
Tues-Thurs 8 pm, Sat matinee 2:30 pm: $18
Fri and Sat 8 pm: $23
Sunday matinee 2:30 pm: Pay-what-you-can

The Pleiades Theatre proudly presents one of Marivaux's greatest plays, The Game of Love and Chance, a comedy about the cruelty and the surprises of love. Written in 1730, this French play combines the style and elegance of 18th Century classic theatre with the eternally modern anxiety we all have about relationships, revealing the deep and agonizing struggle over the true nature of love.
Silvia's father has decided it is time for her to marry and has arranged for her to wed Dorante, the son of his oldest friend. Silvia has seen too many unhappy marriages, so her father allows her to switch roles with her servant in order to observe Dorante more freely, now that he is coming to meet her. But unbeknownst to her, Dorante has done the same thing with his servant. In the ensuing mélée, Dorante and Silvia, each thinking the other is but a servant, fall in love. Although reason tells them they shouldn't, their hearts urge them on.
The Game of Love and Chance is translated and directed by Pleiades Theatre's Artistic Producer John Van Burek. An award-winning Canadian theatre veteran well-known for his work in both official languages, Van Burek has translated and directed most of the plays of Michel Tremblay, recently directed Marcel Pursued by the Hounds at Tarragon Theatre and is the founding Artistic Director of Théâtre français de Toronto.

Marivaux (1688-1763), the most celebrated French dramatist of the 18th Century, can be considered the Mozart of playwrights. With passion, verve and elegance, he explores the ways in which love can play surprising tricks on us, especially when we think we are smarter than our hearts. Like many of Marivaux's works, The Game of Love and Chance examines the vulnerability of young people as they face the daunting responsibilities of adulthood, love and the complications of life.
"Marivaux, out of fashion for most of the century, has suddenly become all the rage. Not really surprising. At a time when we seem to have lost all delicacy in the art of expressing love, the 18th Century French playwright's elegant probing of the workings of the human heart comes to us like drops of rain in the desert." The Herald (London, U.K.)

The Game of Love and Chance is sponsored by du Maurier Arts and Alliance Française de Toronto.

Notes from John Van Burek:

"Written in 1730, Marivaux's The Game of Love and Chance is about a young woman whose father has decided she should marry. The father, understanding his daughter's apprehensions, consents when Silvia asks if she can switch roles with her maid, Lisette. She does this in order to size up her husband-to-be, who is coming to meet her. What the father doesn't tell her is that this young man, Dorante, has had the same idea and has switched places with his servant, Harlequin. In other words, we know pretty well from the outset what the story will be; what remains to be seen is how the characters will sort out the problems they have created for themselves. Thus begins a funny but painful tangle of emotional twists and turns. Our joy in this comedy comes from watching these four people struggle to escape the nets they have thrown over themselves. The drama lies in the wounds they inflict on one another as they do so. What starts out as a lark quickly becomes torture, for them and for us.
As with most of Marivaux's plays, there is an immediacy, an intense passion, in the way he examines human relationships, especially where love is involved. and in the questions he raises about the meaning of commitment. He has a special concern for young people as they set out on the journey through adult life, where danger of making a wrong turn can prove irreparable. There is an urgency and a vitality in Marivaux that makes him leap forward into our own time and startle us with his knowledge of the emotional damage we do to ourselves in thinking we can outsmart our hearts.