Lyne Tremblay is “Living in Limbo” and wants you to join her
As the pandemic’s third wave rises, we desperately need a break from lives battered and shrunken by COVID-19. Enter Lyne Tremblay. The human voice can be transcendent, and the opportunity to hear hers at this moment of pandemic despondency feels like a lifeline.
On April 24th at 7:30 pm EST, Tremblay will perform and stream the cabaret “Living In Limbo” from her Montreal loft. Joining her will be Erik West Millette (West Trainz) on bass; Olaf Gundel on guitars, keyboards and vocals; and Matt Zimbel (Manteca) on percussion. Lucas Harrison Rupnik is Director of Photography .
“It will be an intimate, fun-loving experience, a party from our living room to your living room!” she beams. Although Tremblay has “never done this before,” she is eager to embrace the opportunity “to bring my stage and film experience together, and express this material in a safe but liberated way.” It’s a big promise, and there seems little doubt that she can deliver. Tremblay is warm, vibrant and positive…. which is refreshing at a time when spirits are waning.
Her grit, perseverance and spirit of gratitude are infectious. But there is also deep expertise honed from her years of performing live. Tremblay began her career in modern dance, and toured internationally with the Eddy Toussaint Dance Company before being cast in Andrew Lloyd Weber’s original Canadian production of Cats. She then went on to such lead roles as Sally Bowles in Cabaret at the Mogador Theatre in Paris; Anita in West Side Story; Nava in the original Montreal production of Jerusalem the Musical; and one of the Albertines in Michel Tremblay’s play Albertine en Cinq Temps. Her screen work includes the role of Angel Eyes in the cult classic Night Magic, a musical fantasy written by Lewis Fury and Leonard Cohen; and co-starring with Colin Mochrie in the Valerie Buhagiar feature film The Anniversary.
Used as she is to performing in front of live audiences, this virtual cabaret “is a new challenge for sure”: “I love a live audience . . . the teasing, the eye contact, the unplanned, spontaneous fun stuff that comes when one is absolutely present in the moment. I embrace those surprises, and I love being destabilized by them.” The live cabaret format is a licence to “be, to perform, to react, to express in whatever manner you feel without worrying about fitting in. The sky is the limit.”
In keeping with that spirit, Tremblay plans to break the fourth wall and reach out to the audience through the camera lens and chat feature in Zoom,. She will allow audience members to ask questions or make comments, and “at the end of the show, my moderator and I will share and respond to some of the comments, which will be a lot of fun.” There is also a plan for an interactive segment to connect with the audience during the show, which will allow the performers to connect and laugh together. As Tremblay is a Quebecois with some family and friends who do not speak English, and others who do not speak French, the show will be bilingual and accessible to all.
So yes, it seems like Tremblay has thought of everything, and Living In Limbo should be the party she is intending it to be. The material is drawn from her second album Get to It. Released in early 2021, it is a collection of songs which either crossed her path while she was performing them for a show, or simply had the perfect message at the right moment in her life. Releasing them now during these crazy times has given them new dimensions.
These diverse selections include a “very cabaret arrangement à la Kurt Weill” of the Rolling Stones’ “Mother’s Little Helper”. This is a song about housewives having a hard time getting through the day and getting a good night’s sleep. So hard that they need a little pill to survive their stay-at-home lives. “This song”, she notes, “is about the risk of addiction and overdose, which is an especially current subject right now – and even worse in these limbo times.”
The album includes two original songs that she co-wrote with composer Carlos Lopes, who even added Spanish lyrics. The first is “Dancing Fool”, which is an homage to her first love: dance. The second is “Piggy Back”, co-written with Scott Marshall, the musical director on her first album Break ‘N Enter (2004). She describes the song as a “love poem with a twist” that ends with a message of hope for her single friends that, “one day, you will meet the one”.
Other songs include “Slave to the Rhythm” which Tremblay interprets as a life mantra: “we gotta do what we gotta do, so we might as well do it with groove, dedication and consciousness… Breathe, dance, work, live, love”. David Gilmour’s “This Heaven” is an ode to gratitude which affirms Tremblay’s belief in staying in a “constant state of gratitude to manifest what we wish our lives to be”. “Matt’s Tune” by Laura Smith is about “support for our dear ones who are in a state of confusion”. Smith, as it happens, was a prolific Halifax folk singer-songwriter artist who passed away of cancer just last March. Tremblay had a few exchanges with her about acquiring the rights to the song before her passing. A final beautiful song from the album is “Dance Me to The End of Love” by Leonard Cohen. “I am so proud of our interpretation, which we captured in one take. I love, love that song. The resilience it takes to dance until the end….The poetry makes me cry.”
Originally, Tremblay had planned to launch Get to It with a corresponding live show scheduled for the end of April, 2020. The onset of COVID-19 postponed the album release until almost a year after the original plan. Since a live concert in a theatre is still not an option, Tremblay had to find another way to “honour the album”. It didn’t take long to determine how: “At the beginning of the pandemic, lots of artists started streaming shows live from their homes… so I thought, OK, we have a cool home. Let’s do that. I have been living with this idea for a few months now because that, too, got postponed twice – due to restrictions and all that jazz.”
Tremblay will be singing songs from Get to It, but putting them into the context of “living in limbo” during this past year. She will be “encouraging hope, selfcare, to keep moving, to keep dancing, to be there for each other…for family and friends who have been and are still going through a rough time. All done with humour – which is the big healer for me.” She even had fun writing a spoken-word piece called “The List”. which was a “very much needed” element to make this show happen. She describes it as a humorous moment to inspire and encourage us to stay focused. By checking “the list,” we can celebrate even the smallest of accomplishments, which is most important in these uncertain times.
The cabaret will also include other uniquely memorable moments, like the making of a drink called “Adrenalyne Speciality”, accompanied by “beats, grooves and again, humour”. “We have a very funky bar in an elevator. It would be a shame not to use it in the show because here, we raise the bar!” she laughs. And during the show, Tremblay will also share the history of the building that she is “so grateful” to be living in. It has undergone many incarnations, and she is “very excited to invite people in to share the vibe”.
In addition to describing the varied components of “Living In Limbo”, Tremblay makes a point of explaining the technology involved in streaming the performance: “We’ve chosen to use one camera – a Steadicam – which will follow the action, becoming a character in itself, and be the eye for the audience in one sequence.” This way, there will be no cut to a second or third camera. The experience will be continuous and “completely natural and acoustic, with no fixing any gauche moments. What you see is what you get!”
The streaming platform is Side Door, a Canadian virtual venue developed by Dan Mangan, whom she met in 2011 while she was the choreographing producer for the Canada Day show on Parliament Hill. Although Tremblay and her band will perform the show from home, it was vital to ensure great sound and great production values, and she is confident that Side Door will deliver that in spades.
All of the artists and technical crew will observe strict protocols and maintain a distance from each other. The musicians will stay in place, while Tremblay moves within the space with “Mister Cameraman”, who will be respecting his distance. Yet even with all these detailed plans in place, Tremblay admits that she feels an underlying worry because “things keep changing, and I would be devastated if we were not permitted to do it” at all.
“I can honestly say, it’s been a tough year, trying to keep spirits and hopes up. It’s been very frustrating to say the least. You get all ready to go, and then… no, not yet. I am proud that I haven’t given up on this project despite all the restrictions. All the work has got to pay off. This too shall pass.”
Make sure Living in Limbo doesn’t pass without you!
Tickets to Living In Limbo are available at Side Door. Follow Lyne Tremblay on Instagram @adrenalynemusic.
© Arpita Ghosal, SesayArts Magazine, 2021
