Michaela Di Cesare is no stranger to the Centaur Theatre stage. Two years ago, Di Cesare was invited to be part of the Centaur’s Wildside Theatre Festival.
This time around, Di Cesare’s new play is part of the Centaur’s official season. At just 30 years of age, this is no small feat.
Successions follows the story of two Italian-Montreal brothers who, faced with the sudden death of their parents, need to decide what to do with the family home. One brother is an uptight lawyer running for office. The other would rather party than work. Their relationship takes a toll as they agonize with the decision.
Di Cesare, herself an only child, has always been fascinated with the sibling dynamic.
“My mom has four sisters and one brother. I always observed their behavior. And when my grandfather, their father, passed away, they found themselves orphaned at an adult age,” she explains.
“I also got a brother through marriage. Observing the relationship between my husband and his brother, it’s so interesting to watch how fast they switch back to their boyhood. The way the brothers speak to each other and act with one another.”
With Successions, Di Cesare breaks away from her female-centered storylines.
“I have been accused of not caring about men in my past work,” Di Cesare muses.
“I just took it as a challenge to show that my brand of ‘feminist play’ can have male protagonists and still be feminist.”
While playing out the family dynamic with all the humor and drama that come out of that, the play also examines the legal ramifications of inheritance, especially when that inheritance comes with debt.
“This situation is so prevalent in our generation. Yet it is such a taboo subject within the Italian community. The play offers both a legal and artistic conversation about it. One brother is very logical about the situation. The other brother has an emotional connection to their inheritance,” Di Cesare explains.
“At the end of the day, the question is, what are we willing to keep and what are we willing to give up,” she continues.
Di Cesare’s big break at the Centaur Theatre comes after seven years of self-producing.
Her debut play, 8 Ways My Mother Was Conceived, made its premiere at the 2011 Montreal Fringe Festival. Di Cesare went on to perform her one-woman show in Toronto, New York, Hudson, Ottawa, Winnipeg and Stratford. She would return to the Montreal Fringe Festival in 2015 to premiere In Search of Mrs. Pirandello.
“With this play I’m not self-producing and I’m not even acting in it. To only be wearing one hat is such a big change and it means so much,” Di Cesare admits.
“I also recognize that I’m the first Italian-Canadian female playwright to be part of the Centaur season and I don’t take that lightly. The Centaur team has been amazing. I don’ t feel any pressure to fit into the mold. Although I do feel the pressure to perform well at the box office because of my predecessors,” she continues.
Productions by Italian-Canadian playwrights Vittorio Rossi and Steve Galluccio have always done well on the Centaur stage. Their shows are often sold out.
Always the prolific writer, Di Cesare is already developing her next play. This summer, she will travel to her father’s hometown in Italy to research the life and story of one Michaela Di Cesare who was a freedom fighter in the 1860s.
As for life after its world premiere, Di Cesare hopes to see Successions translated into French in order to reach a wider Quebec audience, and dreams of a film version of the play.
“I think every playwright has that dream,” she muses.
Directed by Tamara Brown, and featuring Carlo Mestroni, Davide Chiazzese, Gita Miller and Tara Nicodemo, Successions runs at the Centaur Theatre in Old Montreal until May 6, 2018. For tickets, please visit centaurtheatre.com.
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