Prior to last Wednesday, the only type of event I had ever attended at the Arts Lounge—located in the basement of McGill’s Leacock building—were a handful of the weekly Bar des Arts (BDA) gatherings, which always promise a boisterous crowd of tipsy students. The Fridge Door Gallery (FDG) Fall 2013 Vernissage—one of the bi-annual art exhibitions organized by the McGill student-run FDG—offered a similar if slightly less boisterous experience.
As a first-time FDG attendee with little idea of what to expect, I was pleasantly surprised to find that such a large and upbeat group of students had come to check out the exhibition. The cheerful student presence was juxtaposed with eerie yet engrossing experimental musical performances interspersed throughout the vernissage.
Sleek, well-designed programs were waiting for people as they walked through the doors of the Arts Lounge, as well as a large printed board that stated and explained the Vernissage’s theme and title, Diffusion | Distortion. Its broad goal as stated in the program was to celebrate artworks that “explore the fluidity of perception.” Nearly all of the artwork was arranged hanging in front of the lounge’s long wall. Lamps were set up to illuminate the various pieces, and ample viewing space was available, with the usual couches that line the room bunched together off to the side, where the pool table is.
The event’s starting time was 6 p.m.; when I came in at 6:15, the majority of guests had already swarmed the table where refreshments were being distributed. I took advantage of that rush to get a first glance at all of the art, positioning myself right in front of it without any competition— in what proved to be a Pyrrhic victory. Since almost all the cheese and crackers were gone by the time I was ready to sample, I only ended up with some grapes, and veggies with dip. Though I wasn’t drinking, the organizers still seemed to be going strong with their generous wine and sangria supplies.
(Wendy Chen / McGill Tribune)
Considering that McGill has no fine art program, I was very impressed with the FDG selection. There was a diverse mixture of paintings, photography, sketches, and digitally-designed work. Staying true to the theme of the night, many of the pieces displayed distorted images, and images that diffused different artistic styles, especially the digital images. One of the standout photos by art history alumnus Elisa Penttilä, called “Evening Haze,” manipulated evening streetlights beautifully, so that they appeared as “near-perfect semi-opaque circles.”
My favourite paintings were a small grouping called “Toxic Trees,” created by U4 Education student Madeleine Williams-Orser. Her unusual natural depictions of forestry and bodies of water are the product of an effort to make her landscapes “look the way that they feel.” The results were distorted landscapes built with wispy shades of green. It was a fascinating interpretation—a complete 180 from traditional Canadian Group of Seven paintings, despite the similar subject.
FDG had arranged for undergraduate Music student Ryan Kelly, who is also pursuing mathematics and linguistics degrees, to perform at the vernissage. Shortly after the event began, the organizers diverted everyone’s attention towards Kelly, and he began to play from a set called around_me that the program clarified “is meant to be extremely uncomfortable for both the performer and the listener.” Given the way the event had unfolded, with students happily socializing and enjoying the complementary items, it was a drastic mood change, and felt like a bit of a misguided effort. However, everyone was respectful and engaged as he revealed his impressive and spooky sounds, which utilized an amplified closing and scratching of a textbook in its arrangement.
By most accounts, Diffusion | Distortion felt like an absolute success; the art was excellent and the vibe was very positive—creepy music notwithstanding. According to the vernissage’s Facebook event, 195 people were expected to show up, and by my estimate, the actual turnout seemed to be right around that—an admirable feat in this era of mass, impersonal online invitations to student events. I’m already excited for the spring vernissage, to which I’ll be promptly arriving at with a mandate of eat first, admire later.
The post-game scrum had been relocated from the hot and crowded COTC lounge to the gym. Family members and media milled about, sipping lukewarm beer as they waited for the team to emerge. Inside the locker room, the Redmen players peeled off their equipment, catching their breath after the game’s tough result. While the rest of the team showered, starting quarterback Bryan Fuller moved to the centre of the room. He was seething. “Mark my words, we will not lose another game this year.”
The date was Saturday, Sept. 25, 1987, and the McGill Redmen football team had just dropped its second match against the OQIFC-(Ontario-Quebec Intercollegiate Football Conference) leading Bishop’s Gaiters. McGill’s record was now 1-2. The Redmen hadn’t made the playoffs in six years. But Fuller’s words would mark the turning point for the most incredible team in McGill Athletics history, as the Redmen would go on to sweep their remaining games en route to winning the 1987 Championship Vanier Cup.
—————————
“I remember, as early as spring camp before the season, what struck me [was] for my first time in all my years at McGill, I looked at our various positions […] and I couldn’t find a weak area,” Gary Kirchner recalls.
Kirchner, now a teacher at John Abbott College in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, sounds reflective over the phone. It was 26 years ago that he was the defensive line coach for the championship McGill football team, but it is clear that the season still stands out in his mind.
“In previous years, we had a very good group of linebackers, or a very good running back—but what struck me was the whole package. I was looking around and thinking, ‘Wow, everybody’s good!’ It’s not like we were a bunch of all-stars, but we were solid [and] we didn’t have a weak defensive line.”
The Redmen entered the 1987 season in the wake of another disappointing year in which the team had failed to make the playoffs. In 1983, a new academic policy at McGill created speculation that the university no longer had a chance at a top-level football team. The resulting flurry of resignations forced Head Coach Charlie Baillie into hiring a new coaching staff. Yet, in an ironic twist, that same year also saw the arrival of freshmen Wayne McRae, Bryan Fuller, and Bruno Pietrobon—key players who would later have crucial roles in helping the 1987 team win the Cup.
After starting the season 1-2, Fuller’s prescient speech kicked off what can only be described as one of the most incredible regular season runs in Canadian University Football history. In the games to follow, the Redmen would post staggering triumphs: a comeback win after being down 14-2 at halftime against Carleton, and narrow victories against Concordia, Queen’s, and Ottawa—games which McGill won by an average of only three points.
The wins spoke to the tight-knit nature of the team, which returned 44 veterans to the 1987 roster. McRae, now a financial advisor at Wood Gundy in Montreal, remembers the unbelievable display of team chemistry that was on the field every night.
“It was our character and [the] maturity that our players had on the team, and how strong we were mentally to win those games [that] made the difference,” says McRae.
It started with the “Crazy Dogs”. The bizarrely named offensive line—christened after Fuller’s tendency to feed the players Milkbone Dog Biscuits at halftime—made the local papers and television.
“My offensive line, the Crazy Dogs, were a group of veteran boys,” says John Kesson, then the offensive line coach and now a high school teacher in Pointe Clare, Quebec. “They were absolutely nuts. They were a free-wheeling, very intense bunch of guys [….] It was just unbelievable, that group. It was an eclectic mixture of people.”
Rounding out the locker room personalities were the Power B’s (defensive backs), the Duke Backers (linebackers), and the French Connection (the defensive line).
Fuller and McRae, the starting quarterback and defensive captain respectively, were both in their fourth year at that point. Adding to their efforts were two star sophomore running backs, Mike Soles and Gerry Ifill, who carried the Redmen through the season on multiple 100-yard-plus games. However, as Kesson put it: “[For this team], the whole was greater than the sum of the parts.”
—————————
It wasn’t until a pivotal matchup against the Queen’s Gaels in the OQIFC semifinals that the Redmen believed they had a shot. McGill and Queen’s had historically been fierce rivals, but when the games mattered the most, the Gaels always had the Redmen’s number. McGill had not beaten Queen’s in a playoff game in nearly two decades, and at the half, the Gaels seemed poised to extend the streak with a 24-7 advantage.
Kesson remembers the game fondly for the team’s halftime turnaround.
“Queen’s scored 24 straight points, which was unheard of on our defence,” recalls Kesson. “I remember going in at halftime, and all the coaches were sort of disheartened and everything, and [defensive co-ordinator Larry] Ring [was] sitting at his desk in the corner, and all he said was, ‘They aren’t going to score again.’”
The Redmen rose to the challenge—McGill managed to score 20 unanswered points in the final 30 minutes to win the game, 27-24.
Ring was just one member of the outstanding group of coaches that Baillie had on his coaching staff. Pat Sheahan, that year’s offensive co-ordinator, went on to become the head coach at Concordia, where he led the Stingers to a Vanier Cup appearance. Sheahan is now the head coach at Queen’s, where he won a Vanier Cup in 2009. Ring went on to win his own Cup in 1997 as head coach at the University of Ottawa.
Kirchner remembers the staff as a unique combination of committed individuals.
“The coaching room was one of the most pleasant I’ve been involved with,” Kirchner says. “There was no pressure; everybody was just there doing a job and enjoying it.”
Waiting for McGill in the OQIFC championship game were the Bishop’s Gaiters, the team that had given the Redmen their only losses that season. However, McGill flipped the script on the Vanier Cup favourites, beating their conference rivals with ease. The final score: 32-16.
The season of destiny continued in the Atlantic Bowl as McGill faced off against the St. Mary’s Huskies for the right to play in the Vanier Cup. The Huskies, led by their star quarterback and future Canadian Football Hall-of-Famer Chris Flynn, held a two-point lead with a minute and a half left in the game. McGill’s ruthless defence intercepted Flynn on a late fourth-quarter bomb, and Fuller brought the offence out for the chance to win the game.
“We were marching down the field, and there were three times where we were at three-and-ten, and we went for it and made it all three times,” McRae recalls. “Our field goal kicker [Chuck Petitpas] had missed this short 25-yard field goal [earlier in the game, but] with basically two seconds left on the clock, he kicks this 40-yard field goal with zero seconds to win it by a point.”
They had made it. The Redmen were in the big game that nobody thought they deserved to be in.
The 1987 season is surrounded by an aura of mystique because many across Canada believed it to be a Cinderella story come true. Joe Nemeth, then a freshman offensive lineman and now a member of the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC), remembers how the team coolly handled the backhanded comments that wrote off its efforts prior to the championship game. The University of British Columbia (UBC) Thunderbirds—the reigning Vanier Cup Champions—hadn’t lost a game in two years.
“[UBC] was a 14-point favourite and [people were] like, ‘Do you guys even deserve to be on the field?’” Nemeth recalls. “We actually played to that very well [by saying], ‘Oh no, no, we’re very honoured,’ […] but inside the locker room we knew we could [win] it.”
The Thunderbirds had a high-powered passing attack with which they had racked up points all season. This time, however, they only managed one touchdown on the night—and it was achieved long after the game had been decided. McGill dominated UBC, blowing out the reigning champions 47-11.
Soles ran for 203 yards and two touchdowns; Ifill had 122 yards and three touchdowns; McRae returned an interception 67 yards for a touchdown; and Ring designed a defence that simply grounded the Thunderbirds. This was no underdog. This was a team that had out-worked its opponents and would not settle for anything less than the best.
—————————
It has been 26 years since Fuller made his season-changing declaration. In that time, the McGill football team has failed to reach the national championships, and the program has fallen to the bottom of the RSEQ. No Redmen football team has come close to replicating the success of the 1987 team.
McRae, now the president of Friends of McGill Football, understands that today’s league is drastically different from the one that he played in years ago.
“Now, the french universities are dominating right across Canada, [which] makes the league very tough,” he says. “A few years back, the average [age] of the McGill Redmen was 17 years old, whereas the average age on Laval was 24. Huge difference—men and boys.”
The 1987 team was a perfect mix of veteran leadership, great coaching, talent, and wild locker room personalities. It was a group of young men that worked hard and refused to back down when faced with difficult odds.
McGill students—much as they are today—were impartial to campus athletics back then. However, the incredible 1987 championship Redmen football team transcended the normally apathetic student body and brought the community together in ways that are almost unimaginable today.
The Redmen have scheduled reunions every five years, with the team’s 30-year banquet approaching quickly. While the players and coaches from that special ‘87 Redmen team have gone on to pursue drastically different careers, a connection like the one they forged that season is not easily broken.
“Ultimately, it feels like it was yesterday,” McRae says. “The most memorable post-season reception we had [that season] was when the whole team got together in this little cement room underneath the stands to say our final goodbyes to each other. That was the most emotional and memorable one. It was fun to be recognized on stage, on camera, on radio, and all the different public events, but that evening when it was just the players and the coaches saying goodbye to each other was probably the one that was most special. [We were strong] because of the bond we had for each other.”
A previous version of this article stated that the Redmen had not made the conference championship since the 1987 win—in fact, the team has managed this twice since then. Rather, the Redmen have not made the national championship since their winning season. The Tribune regrets the error.
Additional reporting by Ben Carter-Whitney
Timeline created by Ben Carter-Whitney using Timeline JS
1. Place flour, cinnamon, salt, and nutmeg in a large bowl and whisk. Set bowl aside. Coat a second bowl with vegetable oil.
2. Place yeast and one teaspoon sugar in a medium bowl. In the microwave, heat half a cup of apple cider until warm and stir into yeast and sugar mixture. Let sit for approximately five minutes, or until mixture foams.
3. Whisk remaining sugar, apple cider, egg yolks, apple butter, and vanilla into yeast mixture.
4. Add yeast mixture to the first bowl. Stir until the dough begins to form a ball.
5. Transfer the dough to a lightly-floured surface. Cut unsalted butter into pieces and distribute throughout the dough. Knead for about eight minutes until the butter is fully incorporated.
6. Form dough into a ball, and place in oiled bowl, coating dough in oil. Cover bowl with damp towel and let dough rise for about two hours.
7. Line baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
8. Transfer dough to a lightly floured surface and roll out until a quarter of an inch thick.
9. Cut out three-inch diameter circles of dough and place on baking sheet about ¼-inch apart. Repeat with any remaining scraps of dough.
10. Cover dough with a damp towel and let rise for another 30 minutes.
11. Heat eight cups of oil in a pot over medium heat. Fit a wire rack over a second baking sheet and set aside.
12. Add four pieces of dough to oil and fry for about two minutes, flipping half way in between, until golden brown. Remove doughnuts with slotted spoon, place on rack, and repeat with the remainder of the dough. Between each set, use tongs to take the cooked doughnuts and coat with sugar, then return to rack.
13. Let doughnuts cool before eating!
—Matthew Shepherd
Peppermint schnapps hot chocolate
Ingredients
4 oz peppermint schnapps
5 tbsp sugar
4 cups water
4 tbsp cocoa powder
4 candy canes
whipping cream
Instructions
1. Slowly add 1 tbsp sugar while beating whipping cream, slowly adding 1 tablespooon sugar until peaks form.
2. Boil water in a medium sized pot. Stir in cocoa powder and remaining sugar.
3. Add peppermint schnapps and stir.
4. Pour into individual mugs and top with whipped cream.
5. Garnish with candy cane and enjoy!
—Marlee Vinegar
Gingerbread popcorn
Ingredients
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 cup popcorn kernels
¾ cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
¼ cup molasses
1 tbsp ground ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp cloves
½ tsp salt
½ tsp baking soda
Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 200o F.
2. Warm oil in a large pot on medium heat and drop three “test” kernels in until popped. Add the rest of the popcorn, shaking the pot constantly.
3. Once popped, remove from heat and set aside.
4. In saucepan, combine butter, sugar, molasses, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and salt over medium-low heat until mixture looks syrupy.
5. Let the mixture bubble, stirring constantly so it does not stick to the pan, and add baking soda.
6. Pour over popcorn.
7. On a baking sheet lined with parchment, spread the popcorn evenly and bake for 1 hour, gently mixing it approximately every 15 minutes.
From the West end to the Mile End, Montreal is home to entertainment venues that make its prolific cultural presence possible. The Tribune’s Arts & Entertainment team dug up the histories of some of the city’s notable venues for a look at how they became what they are today.
The Corona Theatre
The Virgin Mobile Corona Theatre that I’ve come to know during my time at McGill—through incredible live performances by Shad, Hey Rosetta!, and The Arkells—is the product of more than a century of evolution, vastly changed from what it once was.
The Corona Theatre was built in 1912, long before Virgin founder Richard Branson was running his billion-dollar empire—or even alive. Catering to the entertainment of the era, it housed showings of silent movies accompanied by music, and light comedy shows.
Up until the 1960s, the theatre flourished as a landmark of the south-west Montreal district of Little Burgundy. Then, however, its owners ceased to maintain it properly, and it was threatened to be demolished on several occasions.
Towards the end of the 1980s, the little-used building underwent a significant revival as a location for movie filming. A greater breakthrough occurred in 1997 when a non-lucrative arts corporation bought the theatre, began a renovation process, and had it reopened by 1998. More renovations occurred between 2003-2004, and Virgin Mobile became the official sponsor in 2012.
Today, the Corona Theatre is best known as a concert venue that treads between intimacy and spectacle. It also welcomes rental groups to make use of its space. Through the years of change and uncertainty, it has retained most of its core design features: the upper balcony seating and the distinctive arch that creates a grand presence on Rue Notre Dame Ouest. It’s off the beaten track for most McGill students, but it’s well worth the metro trip to take in a show.
— Max Berger
Metropolis
(via Pierre Bourgault)
At the heart of Montreal’s Quartier des Spectacles, our famous entertainment district, you’ll find Metropolis. The building that we know and love today as one of the city’s most popular concert venues has undergone many a transformation since its construction over 100 years ago. Opened in 1884 as a skating rink, it was renovated as a theatre. With the rise of cinema in the 1920s, the venue was renovated to house a movie theater and then reverted to a playhouse in the early 1930s. From 1960-1981 it underwent a blue spell, playing host to an adult cinema. The venue closed its doors to the public from 1981 to 1987, but ended the six-year shutdown with a grand reopening as a popular discothèque.
When L’Éqiupe Spectra—a company devoted to developing and raising the profile of the Montreal cultural scene—acquired the venue in 1997, it became the place we know today. Under its current guise Metropolis has featured hundreds of entertainers from all ends of the spectrum. Showcasing huge stars and up-and-comers alike, Metropolis’ acts have ranged from Aziz Ansari to Ziggy Marley. While hosting live performances remains its lifeblood, it occasionally lends itself as a reception hall for launches, corporate parties and events of all sorts.
— Kia Pouliot
Resonance
Resonance melds live music and the warm atmosphere of a small coffee shop into an appealing package.
The venue was founded by McGill alumni Martin Helsop and Colin Power in October 2012, based on an idea they had started seriously planning in January of that year. Helsop and Power, a bassist and saxophonist respectively, were inspired to create the venue by their love of performing and their desire to give more musicians a platform for self-expression.
Though Resonance does not identify as a club for one particular type of music, Power and Helsop aim to book more experimental and creative acts. While they tend to showcase mostly acoustic instrumental music, they’re open to having different types of artists, particularly ones who may not yet be getting many opportunities at other venues.
“I want to remind them of their personal reason for existing,” Helsop says.
The venue employs a pay-what-you-want rule for most of their shows. Helsop sees this as a way to encourage people to come without feeling any pressure.
“I hope that people will feel that they can come here on any given night; the audience will be very friendly, and they’ll get exposed to music that they wouldn’t otherwise get exposed to, all with a very low barrier for entry,” Helsop adds.
— Max Bledstein
Cinema du Parc
Despite Cinema du Parc’s current status as a hub for independent and foreign films in Montreal, the theater didn’t always operate under its current aesthetic. Cinema du Parc was founded by the Famous Players Film Company under the name Famous Players du Parc. After going through a variety of name and personnel changes, the art house was reopened under its current name by legendary cinephile Roland Smith. Smith invented the idea of “repertory cinema” (where venues can choose each film they want to show individually, rather than having to show a whole package of them), a method which he instituted at the theatre.
Cinema du Parc distinguishes itself in Montreal through its attempt to bring the Parisian style of cinematic programming, where many different kinds of current films and retrospectives are shown to the bilingual market of Montreal.
Cinema du Parc also plays a big role in the Montreal cinematic scene through its hosting of film festivals. They offer an affordable rate for festivals to rent out their theatres and show films that otherwise would struggle to find an audience in the city.
“What matters most to us is the quality of the film,” says head of press relations Rafaël J. Dostie. “Without us, a lot of films would never get shown.
— Max Bledstein
Theatre Rialto
Theatre Rialto was built between 1923 and 1924, and originally functioned as a movie theatre. Its Neo-baroque architecture, which was designed by Montrealer Joseph-Raoul Gariépy, was inspired by Paris’ Palais Garnier, a large opera house built in the latter half of the 19th century; the large columns on Rialto’s exterior especially mimic those of its Parisian counterpart. Building on the French grandeur of the facade, Rialto’s interior was built by famous Canadian theatre director Emmanuel Briffa, and its various elegant ornaments, balustrades, cartouches, and pilasters are crafted in a Louis XVI style.
The impressive facade and illustrious interior of Rialto were the main reasons the theatre was designated as a National Historic site in 1993. The inclusion of a ballroom, a billiards room, a bowling alley, and a rooftop garden added to its grandeur, and its total of 1,370 seats made it an all-around entertainment destination in Mile End. However, the building ceased operation as a theatre in 1990, and its subsequent designation as a site of cultural and historical significance may have been part of an effort to preserve it from the fate of its old-school contemporary Theatre Seville, which was abandoned in 1985 and demolished in 2010.
In the 2000s, Rialto’s theatre seats were removed, but re-imaginings of its business purpose, including the proposals of a steakhouse and a nightclub, were short-lived. After years of sitting on the property, with no offers of purchase from either the city or private developers, owner Elias Kalogeras finally managed to sell it to businessman Carosielli Ezio, owner of daycare company Le Groupe Merveilles Inc. Now, it plays host to a wide variety of events, including tribute band performances, live author interviews, dance nights, and even speed dating.
The McGill Martlets stormed Love Competition Hall for their home opener against the Concordia Stingers on Nov. 21. McGill looked to extend its undefeated start and its nine-game winning streak against the Stingers. The Martlets did not fail to impress, and stuck with their game plan to beat Concordia in a decisive 44-34 victory.
The team came out strong from the tip-off. McGill immediately looked to feed the post down low, as the Martlets took advantage of their height to score easy points in the paint and make their way to the free-throw line early in the game. More important, however, was McGill’s stifling, aggressive defence. The Martlets forced a shot clock violation on the Stingers’ first offensive trip of the game, and proceeded to force Concordia to shoot 16.7 per cent from the field for the first half.
The home team’s aggressive play masked its own shooting deficiencies in the first half. McGill shot a measly 23.5 per cent from the field through the first two quarters, and only scored 20 points in the first 20 minutes of play. However, this was enough to get by in the first half as the Stingers netted a mere 16 points. The Martlets’ defence kept them in the game by clogging up the middle and forcing the Stingers into turnovers and ill-advised shots. Sophomore forward and reigning CIS Rookie-of-the-Year Mariam Sylla was the lynchpin of the stout defensive showing. She denied any easy lay-ups and cleaned the glass all night en route to 11 rebounds at the end of the game.
The second half mirrored the first, as both teams continued to struggle from the perimeter. However, McGill’s persistence in getting to the free-throw line paid dividends. By the end of the game, the Martlets had shot twice as many free throws as Concordia, finishing 11-16 from the line. Both Sylla and senior point guard Francoise Charest finished with 11 points to lead the team.
With another win in the books, the Martlets are 3-0 in season play. The only cause for concern right now is their shooting woes. Following the game, Martlet Head Coach Ryan Thorne reflected on his offensive weaknesses.
“I expect we should be more efficient offensively,” Thorne said. “We have the experience., we [just aren’t] coming together. It’s probably coaching, and we need to tweak some things and get players [in] better places [to score].”
The Martlets have a long way to go if they wish to fully realize their potential. A third straight RSEQ Championship is a very attainable goal, but a medal at CIS Nationals will require consistent improvement. McGill’s defence has kept it afloat as the team has only lost one game to CIS opponents all year, but the squad needs to focus on getting its offence up to par.
“It was good to get the win,” Thorne said. “It is what we are trying to do; but the big thing here is we should be trying to do better. I am not sure if we got better from this game.”
The Martlets look to continue their streak against Bishop’s on Nov. 28 at Love Competition Hall before traveling to Las Vegas, Nevada for the Frontier College Las Vegas Shootout over the winter holiday.
The director’s note uses the words “oppression” and “repression” to describe the McGill English Drama & Theatre Program’s play Cloud 9, and those two words couldn’t have summed up the production more accurately. Cloud 9 explores these main themes within two separate but thematically connected spheres; the first act takes place in Victorian-era colonial Africa, and the second one is set in 1970’s punk London.
The contrast between the two time periods is central to its production. Each actor plays a role in both acts as a way of bending the norms of gender, race, and sexuality. The first act opens with a family headed by a colonist, Clive, singing a tongue-in-cheek song about their idyllic Victorian life. This sets the tone for the play, as from this point on, the Victorian ideals they sing about devolve into a manic destructive spiral. Suddenly, extramarital sex and references to homosexuality, homophobia, and pedophilia appear with abandon.
The second act takes place about 100 years later. Issues of homosexuality and marriage still arise—however, instead of pedophilia, the taboo topic of this act is incest. We are so involved in the show’s reality that we forget the incest occurring on stage is wrong; here, right and wrong are no longer clearly defined. Seemingly a more liberal and free narrative—characters admit their homosexuality, their extramarital affairs, and their sexual habits openly—we see that they actually contain their emotions and actions out of fear. Unlike the first act where fear comes externally, it surfaces here from an anxiety about their true selves.
The play is self-aware in that it questions itself and what it does. In the first act, the play references the traditional veneer of the characters when the actors break the flow of narrative and stiffen up like puppets, moving as if they were attached to strings from above the set. In the second act, the characters’ frustrations explode into a rage of electronic-punk fuelled song. The play toys with the viewer’s expectations of theatre in more ways than one, by choosing actors to play characters that rupture the norms of gender and race. Cloud 9 tries desperately to get a message across: things turn ugly when you reject your true identity.
(Owen Egan / McGill Tribune)
To communicate this message, the actors walk a fine line between drama and comedy, and stray away from the completely ridiculous via moments of earnestness. In act one, Joshua (Leo Imbert), Clive’s black servant, exhibits the struggle of identities within his character. He breaks from his happy caricature of a man and tells Clive’s son Edward a ‘bad’ story of how mankind grew from a great spirit, who threw mud to create the moon. Joshua quickly stiffens up, smiles, and says: “Adam and Eve is true.” The play is full of moments of ‘truths’ like this one.
Although the nuances of the actors’ portrayals of their characters are ultimately successful, the gender-bending in the first act is disappointing. Betty, who is played by Harrison Collett, is too absurd to take seriously. Collett is never convincingly feminine, and the attempts to make her so detract from the point of making a man play her role. Oddly enough, in the second act, Collett’s portrayal of Edward, a gay young man, is more feminine than his portrayal of a woman.
Ultimately, Cloud 9 is a success because of its actors’ ability to bring levity to the themes it presents. It is a complex, engaging, and boundless production. When its characters run off the stage in search of refuge or to find someone, they are so convincing that their world does not end with the edge of the set. The temporality within the show is interesting, as characters from the first act appear in the second, and one actor even wears a t-shirt with Kate Moss’ face in act two. The show seems to say that time is without bounds: the past blends into the present, and therefore, history informs our actions. Identity, which is at the center of this play, is never really one’s own, and this makes internal conflict endemic to the human experience.
Cloud 9 continues to run from Nov. 28-30 at 7:30 p.m. at Moyse Hall Theatre in the McGill Arts building. Tickets are $10.
A term we often hear from time to time—sometimes in the pages of this newspaper—is the idea of the “McGill Community.” While this works best as a tidy phrase to lump together disparate stakeholders—students, faculty, employees, the administration, and alumni—in most instances, there is no such “McGill community,” so much as a collection of young and older adults united by the coincidence of attending the same educational institution.
On some level, considering the size of this university, just over 20,000 full-time undergraduate students alone, the idea that McGill comprises any sort of community is dubious on its face. Still, comparably-sized campuses elsewhere in Canada and the U.S. seem to cultivate a sense of “school spirit”, or a “community.” At other universities, students show up to the sporting events, and wear the symbols of these institutions for life. While one certainly sees students wearing McGill apparell, there is a noticiable lack of ritualistic expressions of pride that exist at some other campuses. What makes this university different?
Perhaps the most noticeable aspect of the McGill student body is how fragmented it is. While there are certainly specific rituals that are common to many students—complaining about Minerva, for instance—there are vanishingly few shared activities or experiences that could be generalized to a supposed “average” McGill student that actually exclude large portions of our campus. The debate over the value—and values—of frosh, which rewinds itself every Fall like clockwork, stands as a case in point.
For all the hand-wringing as of late over this lack of cohesiveness—witness the recent debate over the lack of a sports culture, at McGill—there is much to love—or at least tolerate—in this status quo. For one, there isn’t much of a social hierarchy on campus. With the possible exception of those who live in residence in their first year—another oft-generalized experience that ignores many—it is relatively easy to find a niche of like-minded students, and stick to that niche. This is particularly useful for those who may have felt excluded from the main social groups in previous stages of life.
Still, a feature of the student body, less of a whole and more a collection of much smaller, like-minded communities in miniature, does lead to sharper divisions and conflict when forced to interact. The spaces of tension can vary—conference sessions in some departments, or even the pages of campus publications like this one—but the results are the same.
When confronted with the reality—subconsciously acknowledged but never explicitly pointed out—that we share a campus with others who see the world differently, contempt, derision, and sometimes vitriol, are almost natural reactions. From passive-aggressive (and sometimes fully aggressive) responses to contrasting views in classes, to comments expressing a desire to humiliate an author of a seemingly controversial commentary piece—to take the example of a reaction to a piece from earlier this year, vomit on the person—the thread that unites these responses is the same. It’s not just an offence at the opinion or worldview, but a sort of meta-offence at the idea that someone with such views has to share a university, and perhaps even a classroom with oneself.
Even considering these brief flares of divisiveness, the alternative is not necessarily an improvement. A more robust conception of ‘school spirit’ is really just an attempt to patch over these underlying divisions with a happy-seeming caulking. A more honest university culture would be one that embraces the fact that we all see things—from the big picture to the seemingly simple—differently, and tries to work around it. On some level, while attempts to make McGill a university with more ‘spirit’ are well guided, they might amount to an attempt to shove a square peg in a round hole.
Three members of a varsity sports team are accused of sexual assault by a woman who does not attend their university. The story becomes public and, predictably, outrage ensues. Groups on campus pressure the coach to discipline the players. The suspects are charged, and a trial is pending—but observers have no time for that. Members of the school community publish material that implies that the accused are guilty. Some even suggest that guilt is certain, due to the systematic inequalities that exist in society, and that in cases like this, we really ought not presume innocence.
I know what you’re thinking—this sounds familiar. That the male athletes I’m talking about are three former McGill football players; that the pressure came in the form of anger over the coach not reporting the charges to the McGill administration; that the observers who have no time for legal proceedings are the members of the Union for Gender Empowerment, who published a petition demanding “action against these perpetrators.” You probably think that those suggesting the presumption of innocence should not apply include writers like Lily Hoffman, who wrote in the Nov. 18 issue of the Daily.
All of those assumptions, however, would be wrong.
The individuals I’m talking about are three Duke lacrosse players accused of sexually assaulting a woman at a party in 2006. The pressure was on the coach for not reporting a lewd email. The material published that assumes guilt was the infamous letter by the Group of 88, faculty members who rushed to condemn the players. Notably, no law professors were among them. The person who believed guilt to be a certainty, nevermind that pesky presumption of innocence, was African Studies professor Wahneema Lubiano, who believed the accused to be “almost perfect offenders.”
It must have been awkward, then, when the charges were dropped, the men declared innocent by the State Attorney General himself, and the prosecutor of the case disbarred. Oops.
Stories like this one make us grateful for civil liberties and for due process.
And yet the argument made so far at McGill, in light of the allegations against the three athletes, suggest that process is for other crimes.
Campus groups and activists need to rethink this tactic of presuming guilt. First, because it’s a pretty dubious idea that making the survivor of sexual assault also the judge, jury, and executioner will make reporting easier. Removing the protections to the accused does not solve the problems that make accusers vulnerable.
But even if you disagree with that, there is another reason why we ought to abandon the presumption of guilt for sexual assault cases. Trying to take away basic civil liberties is a battle that cannot be won. One glance at the reaction to the Daily article will tell you this. People are rather fond of the presumption of innocence.
Referring to the suspects as perpetrators and calling for their heads without even lip service to due process concerns many who value our judicial system. Following that up by explicitly attacking a fundamental right is downright alarming. Doing so takes potential allies and turns them into opponents by creating a false dichotomy: a choice between the status quo and a world without the presumption of innocence.
It is impossible to convince students that they should have no recourse, and no rights, as soon as they are accused by anybody of sexual assault. But they can be convinced of the importance of combating rape culture, of the importance of consent, and of creating a safe space for survivors. That’s the battle that can be won, and the battle that must be fought.
From papers to midterms to group projects, university life is not a breeze. In addition to academics, students are being asked to perform what may seem like an overwhelming amount of extracurricular activities. It’s not a surprise so many students have to deal with a jam-packed schedule alongside the pressure of choosing their majors and their careers.
A common solution to dealing with the hurdles of school-related stress is caffeine. Bitter or sweet, caffeinated drinks are probably omnipresent in campuses across North America. However, what happens when caffeine is simply not enough for that late-night bout of essay writing? For many students today, the answer lies in study drugs.
Study drugs are prescribed to individuals dealing with disorders such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to help them focus and calm down. For those without a diagnosable attention disorder, these drugs, also known as “campus crack,” cause hyperactivity and what can be interpreted as productivity.
Alan DeSantis, a professor at the University of Kentucky, tracked the use of ADHD drugs at his university. He reported to CNN that, “[they are] abused more than marijuana, and [they are] easier to get.” According to his research, 80 per cent of the upperclassmen were users. Canadian universities follow a similar trend. The Globe and Mail reported in a recent article that more and more students across Canadian universities are taking them on a regular basis.
“I use Adderall especially during midterms and during finals,” said a third-year B.Sc McGill student. “I remember when I first took it: two papers done in a couple of hours when normally that would probably have taken me two weeks to do! But then, I had a friend who took it because she had a huge organic chemistry final the next day, and she told me it was just terrible for her. She couldn’t sleep for two days straight after taking it; so I guess it really depends on the person.”
Evidently, the effect of these drugs—just like most drugs—is individual-oriented. While these stimulants may seem like magic bullets for your GPA, the adverse effects of taking Ritalin, Adderall and Cancerta exist and are numerous.
When a student has a condition like ADHD, Adderall releases a combination of stimulants like amphetamine and dextroamphetamine that restore the balance of neurotransmitters to allow the user to focus. The dosage varies based on the medical condition of the patient. However, for un-prescribed students, this dosage is hardly regulated, and can cause serious side effects such as withdrawal reactions. These include changes in mood and in sleep patterns, as well as fatigue.
The U.S. federal government lists Adderall as a schedule II drug, meaning it is one with “the highest abuse potential and dependence profile of all drugs that have medical utility”.
According to the Director of the McGill Office for Science and Society Joe Schwartz, these drugs do allow for greater concentration, but he emphasizes, “[I am] not in favor of using drugs for that purpose.”
Aabha Sharma is a PhD candidate in Life Sciences at the Feinberg School of Medicine of Northwestern University in Chicago, with a particular interest in these ‘study drugs’ and their effects on society. Sharma says she has seen a fair share of her friends use these stimulants despite being knowledgeable of the risks involved.
“While it is important to control overuse of Adderall, especially in colleges, understanding why students are resorting to such dangerous prescription drug abuse is equally important,” Sharma said. “The world today is getting more competitive, and survival of […] the smartest is the reality which puts students [under] a lot of pressure. In order to cope with the high standards […] students are finding ways of staying focused to excel. My guess is that the colleges where Adderall overuse is becoming a big problem are also places where mental health issues are skyrocketing.”
According to the same article on the Globe and Mail, campus mental health professionals say they cannot police the use of study drugs and instead suggest educating students about time management, stress, and mental health.
“[A] healthy lifestyle will give you a healthy mind, and help you focus and excel in your work,” Sharma said. “Prescription drug-abuse might seem like it helps for the short term, but the long-term adverse effects might not be worth the price.”
It should be noted that taking or buying drugs without prescription is illegal. Beyond that, this debate of using drugs to forcibly improve cognitive function for better grades while harming one’s body should raise important questions into the values our society associates with the pathway to success. Is harming one’s body acceptable in the name of getting a 90?
Bike gates, a pedestrian-friendly campus, and a car-free McTavish Street are more than just factors of everyday life at McGill. They are all guided by the university’s Physical Master Plan, a document adopted in 2008 that outlines priorities for the development of McGill’s downtown and Macdonald campuses.
The Physical Master Plan
The plan lists nine core principles, including preserving historical buildings, keeping campus accessible, and upholding the university’s academic mission. With an overarching principle of sustainability, the plan directs infrastructure, transit, and landscaping at McGill.
Before the Master Plan was adopted, only disjointed, short-term strategies guided development projects on campus. For example, a large influx of students in the mid-20th century led to the rapid construction of many buildings that fill campus today, including Leacock, Stewart Biology, McLennan Library, and the three upper residences.
“Back in the 1960s, there was huge enrollment growth, so the university was forced to plan major expansion very quickly without a definite vision,” said Chuck Adler, director of Campus and Space Planning (CSP) and a member of the task force behind creating the Master Plan.
To address McGill’s lack of a long-range plan, John Gruzleski, outgoing dean of Engineering at the time, was appointed chair of the task force formed in 2004 to generate a long-term development strategy. Gruzleski began a consultation process to collect input from thousands of people in the McGill and Montreal communities, as well as recommendations from design and planning experts. After two consultation processes over a four-year period, the collected information was distilled into the 75-page document that guides all planning today.
According to Adler, the space constraints of McGill’s downtown location pose specific difficulties. The university must purchase nearby property to expand the campus beyond its current borders, and the real estate market’s unpredictability makes it difficult for McGill’s future development to have a fixed layout.
“Since we have to evolve outside our own territory, we cannot predict where we’re going to be in 10 years,” Adler said. “So the principles [in the Plan] say what’s important to us, and when opportunities come up we can see if they align with those principles.”
Development projects at McGill do not go forward unless they align with the principles of the Master Plan. First, all new projects undergo an evaluation by CSP and University Services. They then receive final approval from various McGill authorities depending on their value—the Board of Governors (BoG) (if value exceeds $5 million), the BoG’s Building and Property Committee (more than $4 million), or senior administration personnel (less than $4 million).
(via flikr.com)
Pedestrianization
When the city of Montreal took an interest in reducing car traffic in the downtown area, McGill seized the chance to pedestrianize campus in accordance with the principles of the Master Plan.
“The university had been talking to the city about this for about 40 years, to make McTavish Street an enlargement of the campus and to make it a better public space,” Adler said. “It wasn’t really planned—it was just an opportunity.”
McGill struck a deal with the city for the university to receive control of McTavish Street in 2010, agreeing to reduce vehicle use on that street and the rest of lower campus. In May 2010, the new pedestrian-friendly campus debuted with restrictions on car and bike use, and deliveries limited to between 7:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m.
“People really wanted to have a greener, more sociable campus where pedestrianization and safety came through as the main priorities,” said Dean of Engineering Jim Nicell, who led the second consultation for the Master Plan. “There was a fair amount of opposition to [the restriction on bike access]. However, there was almost no opposition to the removal of vehicle access from the lower campus.”
However, some students at the time found it difficult to adapt to the restrictions of a pedestrianized campus. Tom Fabian, vice-president internal of the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) in 2010, told the Tribune at the time that the restriction on deliveries brought some challenges.
“[Pedestrianization] has caused tons of hell for us to not have any cars on campus during frosh and Open Air Pub,” he said. “We don’t know when [deliveries are] going to arrive.”
According to Nicell, the pedestrianization of campus was not without its costs.
“It has negatively impacted the university in a financial way, due to lost revenue from parking,” he said. “[But] we accomplished something that will change the face of our university for the next hundreds of years. It will be taken for granted, but it will be incredibly valued.”
The bike gates
Prior to McGill’s pedestrianization of McTavish, the bike path along Milton Street ended at the McGill campus with no connection to the Montreal city centre. This left cyclists with the option of riding against the flow of traffic along University Street for two blocks until they reached the next bike path, or taking a shortcut through the McGill campus.
In 2010, the city built a two-way bike path along University Street to divert cyclists from riding through campus. Since then, McGill has required cyclists to walk their bikes on campus.
Martin Krayer von Krauss, manager of McGill’s Sustainability Office of Campus and Space Planning (CSP), said the rule was created because cycling on campus was deemed “incompatible” with the Master Plan.
“The concern was […] that the safety of pedestrians on campus [and] the speed at which mounted cyclists would travel on campus was incompatible […] with the vision of our campus as a sanctuary within an otherwise hectic urban environment,” he said.
In September 2013, a set of metal swing gates was added to the pedestrian walkway at McGill’s Milton Gates entrance. Associate Vice-Principal (University Services) Robert Couvrette said the bike gates were intended to increase pedestrian safety.
“If cyclists did what the signs asked and dismounted at the entrance, everyone would be very safe,” Couvrette said. “Cyclists who decide to try to ride through the gates or get around them without dismounting are choosing a riskier option.”
The gates, however, received negative attention from some students, including executives from the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) and SSMU.
“These gates [make campus] so inaccessible for everyone who isn’t an able-bodied person,” said Joey Shea, SSMU Vice-President University Affairs. “The bike gates sent a bad message to the Milton-Parc community, and more importantly to the Office for Students with Disabilities (OSD).”
Although the administration originally planned to remove the gates this winter to ease snow removal, they were vandalized and taken down prematurely in October. Using the bike gates as a starting point, a working group—including students, faculty members, urban planning experts, and representatives of the OSD and the student-run Flat Bike Collective—is revisiting whether McGill should allow and accommodate cyclists on campus.
Couvrette said more input from the community is necessary before making further moves regarding cycling on campus.
“We are very aware that many people view these gates as a barrier, even though they are not intended to serve that purpose,” Couvrette said. “In evaluating the effectiveness of this pilot project, we are taking those views into account, bearing in mind that we are committed to the idea of an open, accessible campus.”
Harald Kliems, a member of the Flat Bike Collective, said he is in favour of lifting the restrictions on bikes on campus.
“I strongly believe that it is possible and desirable to create a shared space on campus where pedestrians and cyclists alike can safely co-exist,” Kliems said.
Krayer von Krauss, who chairs the working group re-considering bike use on campus, said financial limitations pose a problem in terms of possible outcomes.
“Money will be an issue,” Krayer von Krauss said. “At this point, McGill could simply not afford, for example, to build a proper cycle path from one end of the campus to the other, if this is what was required.”
However, Nicell emphasized that safety is a bigger issue than the budget when considering the creation of a formal bike path across university property.
“It’s not a funding issue; it’s about what we’re here for as a community,” Nicell said. “We’re not anti-cyclist; we’re pro-safety. We have a history of very dangerous situations [involving bikes]. McGill is incredibly supportive of cycling, and we’ve created […] the infrastructure that’s required to support it.”
Next steps
This February, the city of Montreal will excavate McTavish St. to repair the water main leading from the city’s reservoir, which will leave the street closed off in sections until its
Cars, bikes, and pedestrians shared McTavish Street until 2010. (flickr.com)
tentative completion date in Summer 2014. According to Adler, this repair is an ideal starting point to redevelop the surfaces and functions of lower campus in a more pedestrian-friendly and green way in the next few years.
“We were able to get the cars off lower campus, but we haven’t gone that next step to re-landscape and reorganize lower campus,” Adler said. “[McGill is] trying to partner with the city to make McTavish a showcase for how to re-develop urban streets as green spaces.”
In addition, McGill continues to look into options for expansion by keeping an eye on the real estate market in the area surrounding campus.
“We’re at the end of being able to be master of our own destiny because we’ve pretty well exhausted all of our own land resources,” Adler said. “So we have to be dependent on the marketplace, and we are actively finding out what’s available in the immediate vicinity and whether we can afford to acquire it.”
That could include purchasing nearby properties that are about to become available, such the Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH), which is set to be empty within two to three years once its facilities are relocated.
“There [are] a lot of people who have a stake in its long-term use, [but] there’s a wide-spread acknowledgement that McGill would be the best occupant of that space because we’ve been very good stewards of our land and our buildings,” Nicell said.
Since the hospital resides within one of Montreal’s cultural heritage zones, Nicell said the university would be under obligation to the city and the Quebec government to repurpose or renovate the RVH within the restrictions of such a zone.
Whatever the future holds, any decisions McGill makes regarding development—from purchasing a hospital to implementing bike gates—will be guided by McGill’s Master Plan.
“If it wasn’t for the Master Plan […] we’d be in a very different place now,” Nicell said. “Some people see it as a wishful document, but no—it’s guiding the goal over the long term so that every step we take leads towards our long-term vision.”
