When I was the Artistic Director of Centre culturel Frontenac, I’ve had the chance and the joy of experiencing the immersive production Le concierge two times: when it was created in March 2023 in Toronto and in Ottawa in February 2024.
I’m sharing with you some comments I’d written to Vincent Leblanc-Beaudouin after the Ottawa show.
Hello Vincent,
I would enjoy talking with you after living Le concierge in Ottawa. I really enjoyed seeing the production again and I was fascinated by how a different location changed the show.
In both cases, the elements of immersion and of silence suggested in the introduction are captivating. Once again, I was following the caretaker making hypotheses about his personnality, his interests, his dreams.
The productions’s values were very different between Toronto and Ottawa. In Toronto, I didn’t know the school and I was discovering the location all the way through the evening: decorations in the rooms, in the hallways.
In Ottawa, I knew most of the rooms in De La Salle High School where I’d been many times over the years for events organized by Théâtre Action and Contact Ontarois.
In Toronto, even if we follow the caretaker at nightime in a closed environment, there was contact with the outside world and glimpses in the caretaker’s imagination. We started and ended on the theatre’s stage, a contrast between what his reality, this man working, and what is fiction, ephemeral. There was also a scene in the chapel where we sat and contemplated the street through the windows, the outside world, where an opened window let the street noises filter in. And, it was a great surprise to discover this streetview again in the mural down in the janitor’s room: to see these houses and the painted silhouette of the caretaker’s contemplating it all. As if, he too being alone, needed this glance to the outside world. The scene in the dance studio with the toilet paper being throwned and that would unroll at high speed was impressive. The students taking part as automated characters in the hallways and that we saw at the end from the balcony of the theatre moving on the stage enchanted me. There was an alienating atmosphere where the caretaker seemed overwhelmed , badtripping by moments but who seems to survive this environment.
In Ottawa, It felt more as if the environment was oppressive to the caretaker. All the rooms were inside the building, there were no windows, no connections to the outside world. We didn’t go to the theatre but in the cafeteria and in classes. I enjoyed the scene in the library and the fact that the cartaker took time to read: needing to escape? To think? To keep on reading an exciting story? And the scene in the janitor’s room was very different: all the drawings representing the caretaker, his silhouette had a worrisome aspect, almost tormented and these numbers accumulated on the board felt almost alienating
The final scene in the drama class with the students was oppressive in the way they were dominating the cartaker, wrapping him in paper, more aggressive.
It’s a production that keeps haunting me.
I’m looking forward to discover how Daniele Bartolini, your team and yourself will make us live this unique experience that is Le concierge in Mille-Îles and Sainte-Marie-Rivier High Schools.
A must see and experience! Le concierge has been presented 4 times and always in sold out performances.
Production by Vincent Leblanc-Beaudouin and Daniele Bartolini
A partnership between Centre culturel Frontenac and The The Kick & Push Festival
From Thursday July 23 till Tuesday July 28, 2026 at 7:30 pm in Centre scolaire-communautaire, 1290, rue Wheathill, Kingston
Tickets on sale:
https://www.thekickandpush.com/le-concierge
Le Concierge in the news:
À échelle humaine – Le Concierge : spectacle immersif présenté à Kingston
Y a pas deux matins pareils – Culture : « Le Concierge » à Kingston
ENT: Immersive play kicks off this year’s Kick & Push theatre festival