Description

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Freeze is an allegorical comedy that dramatizes the Great Ice Storm of '98 as a metaphor for "cooler", more tolerant times in Quebec compared to the separatist "heat" of earlier decades. Five Montrealers find themselves trapped inside the power-outed duplex of Nicole, a pur-laine pro-sovereignty journalist. Her boyfriend Curtis, a Black Anglo jazz musician, arrives with a shocking marriage proposal. Mickey, an Irish gambling-addicted handyman, exploits the storm by selling firewood at exorbitant prices. And Hydro Quebec lineman Réjean tries to do his job, while Claire, the horny elderly neighbor, struggles to mediate. This dysfunctional quintet butt heads over politics and love, provoking us to ponder whether Montreal's "two solitudes" has become a stereotype in this new Century.

Praise For…

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"For those of us who lived through the Montreal Ice Storm of '98, we ... shared an unexpected rite of passage and nothing after would be as it was before. With Freeze, Stephen Orlov has captured that time and place with remarkable insight and great humour in a play that will tickle your funny bone on the way to your heart. Everything in the given circumstances of this play is accurate and insightful. And, as with all good plays, the specific speaks to the universal and therefore, to audiences everywhere." — Gordon McCall, former Artistic/Executive Director of Centaur Theatre, Montreal.