FREEZE, a two-act comedy about the social mosaic of Quebec, is set in January of 1998 during the worst day of ice storm of the century. The play dramatizes allegorically the historic ice storm as a metaphor for "cooler' more tolerant times in Quebec compared to the political "heat" of the late 60s, 70s and early 80s.
Five quirky characters find themselves ice bound inside the blacked-out lower duplex of journalist, Nicole Gagnon, a lifelong sovereigntist. Her boyfriend, Curtis Brown, a Jazz musician raised in the predominantly African-Canadian Montreal neighborhood of Little Burgandy, arrives from Toronto with a shocking suggestion. Mickey Brennan, a gambling handy man from the Irish working-class neighborhood of Pointe Ste. Charles, exploits the storm by selling firewood and sawing off dangerous tree limbs at exorbitant prices. Hydro Quebec lineman, Rejean Chartrand, butts heads as he tries to do his job, and the horny widow from upstairs, Claire Perkins, tries to mediate this dysfunctional quintet of characters. But tensions flare inside as the storm rages on.
Keywords: Allegorical comedy, 1998 Ice Storm, "Two Solitudes" melting in Multicultural Montreal
Year Printed: 2011
First Produced: 2002 at the Centaur Theatre, Montreal, QC.
Running TIme: 110 minutes
Acts: 2
Male Cast: 3
Female Cast: 2