New Moon Theatre, under the auspices of the St. Andrews Arts Council, will bring their production of Michael Tremblay’s Albertine in Five Times to Eastport Arts Center for performances at 7 pm on Thursday, November 8 and Friday, November 9. These shows conclude the production’s three-city tour, which included performances in St. Andrews and Fredericton, NB.

In Albertine in Five Times, a woman at 70 faces her past. Canadian playwright, Michel Tremblay, hits on a painful reality that an older woman has more years behind than in front of her. Memory has a way of disguising the truth, but Albertine comes to terms with the drama of her history through her younger selves. We meet not one Albertine, but five Albertines, each one representing a successive decade along the path that is her life. The play opens with Albertine at 70 entering a home for the elderly. Albertine at 30, 40, 50, and 60 appear, each with a story to tell.

Suzanne Tisdale, director of the play, is thrilled about this new production and its exciting outreach. She says, “We have loved playing to audiences in St. Andrews for the past few years and look forward to a collaboration with Theatre New Brunswick and with our neighbours in Maine. We have been working hard to build important links with Eastport and this initiative will be a great way to strengthen those bonds. The play is one that will resonate with audiences everywhere and we know that audience members in all three communities will relate to the issues raised.”

The five actresses who will portray Albertine are shown rehearsing.

Tisdale and Co-director Peggy Fothergill were inspired to bring the play to audiences across the province because of Tremblay’s beautiful language and because of the play’s enduring themes. Fothergill says, “The social history of Quebec women from the 1940s to the 1980s may seem like a long time ago, but the topics are current. The impact of oppression and poverty on women’s lives is still being felt in our own country now and around the world. It is in our daily headlines, as is the theme of aging. That is the brilliance of Tremblay. His themes are enduring.”

Tickets are $12 and may be purchased at the door or at eastportartscenter.org. The Eastport Arts Center (EAC) is at 36 Washington Street, Eastport, and is handicapped-accessible. The work of the EAC has been funded in part by a grant from the Maine Arts Commission, an independent state agency supported by the National Endowment for the Arts. For media inquiries about Albertine in Five Times, please contact Peggy Fothergill at peggyfothergill1@gmail.com.