Centaur’s Holiday in Zürich is a moving portrait of love and difficult choices
By Irwin Rapoport
November 12, 2026
Holiday in Zürich, playing at Centaur Theatre until November 22, brings together the considerable talents of playwright Colleen Murphy, director Micheline Chevrier, and actors Danielle Desormeaux and Brian Dooley. The result is a compelling, 90-minute, single-act production that balances the intimacy of a long marriage with the weight of an approaching reckoning, bringing humour, tenderness and emotional depth to Colleen Murphy’s drama.
Murphy’s drama explores love not through grand declarations, but through the imperfect, persistent act of choosing one another when time is running short.
Frank and Clementine, affectionately known as Tiny, are a happily married couple in their 70s preparing for a trip to Switzerland. But while they share a destination, they have very different expectations of the journey. Frank is preparing to face the most difficult challenge of his life. Tiny, meanwhile, fills their itinerary with sightseeing, romance and European cuisine, determined to hold on to the promise of their dream vacation.
As they pack, those competing expectations emerge in exchanges that are funny, tender and sometimes painful. Set almost entirely in their bedroom, the play brings a lifetime of shared experience into the seemingly ordinary business of getting ready to leave. Small negotiations, familiar habits and unspoken fears reveal how differently two people can approach the same difficult truth—and how deeply they may wish to protect each other from it.
Murphy’s drama explores love not through grand declarations, but through the imperfect, persistent act of choosing one another when time is running short. At its heart, two people try to face what lies ahead together, even when they cannot agree on how.
A marriage brought vividly to life
Should the CBC ever launch a weekly series showcasing Canadian plays from across the country, Holiday in Zürich would be an excellent candidate. It brings together the essentials of compelling storytelling: a couple deeply in love, a crisis both personal and shared, difficult questions that resonate beyond the stage, and dialogue that is natural, sharp, witty and warm.
From beginning to end, Desormeaux and Dooley command our attention. They inhabit Frank and Tiny with conviction, moving effortlessly through the familiar rhythms of married life as the emotional stakes rise. Their exchanges carry the drama towards a climax that I found deeply satisfying—one that stirs our emotions while inviting us to reconsider our own views on the questions the play raises.
The production’s strength lies in this attention to the familiar: the bedroom, the packing, the exchanges between two people who know each other well.
After seeing the production last Saturday evening, Karina and I went to the Centaur bar to discuss it. At the next table sat Dooley, who teaches at the National Theatre School, and one of his students. Karina recognized his voice, and before long, we had joined their conversation.
Generous with his time, Dooley offered insights into the work behind the performance. He, Desormeaux, Chevrier and Murphy had honed the production over three and a half weeks of rehearsals. Yet even after that preparation, an essential element remained absent until opening: the audience. And, despite the standing ovations the production has received, Dooley resisted any suggestion that the work was finished. He “still does not know whether we had it right,” he said. “It’s an ever-evolving process.”
That commitment to discovery helps explain the production’s strength. Dooley also noted that, despite the seriousness of its themes, Murphy wanted to “keep it light” and create “something that is real.” Drawing in part on real-life situations, he delivers a performance that, alongside Desormeaux’s, is deft, affecting and electrifying.
Julie Vallée-Léger’s set, costume, and prop design give the actors an uncluttered space to bring this relationship to life. A bed occupies the centre of the stage, flanked by dressers, with a comfortable chair to the right. A doorway to the hallway sits on the left, while the bathroom door is on the right. The arrangement allows the actors room to move and communicate through gesture as well as dialogue. Their occasional exits also leave the other character alone, creating moments in which private thoughts and emotions can surface.
There is no background music, but Tiny’s singing, as Desormeaux portrays her efforts to comfort herself, adds another intimate dimension to the atmosphere. The production’s strength lies in this attention to the familiar: the bedroom, the packing, the exchanges between two people who know each other well. Against that everyday backdrop, the difficult questions at the heart of Holiday in Zürich become all the more affecting.
From an idea to the Centaur stage
How did Holiday in Zürich grow from a brief concept into a fully realized production? In the following interview, Centaur’s artistic and executive director, Eda Holmes, traces its beginnings, explains its place in the theatre’s 58th season, and reflects on the artists whose longstanding collaborations helped bring Frank and Tiny’s story to the stage.
WM: What made you select Holiday in Zürich for the Centaur Theatre’s 58th season:
Holmes: Brian Dooley brought this play to me when it was just a paragraph description, and Colleen Murphy was looking for a letter of support to apply for a grant to write the first draft. I loved the concept and thought that it would speak very well to the Centaur audience. So I wrote a letter of support, and Colleen got the grant to write the play. Colleen had a draft that she was happy with about a year and a half ago, and I started to look for a good place to program it – which turned out to be this season.
WM: How does the play complement the rest of the programming for the season?
Holmes: I like to think of a season of plays as a great dinner party. You need to offer a variety of experiences with each course. In this season, we have a variety of great stories in a variety of forms. We have plays based on famous historical figures, like Ismene and Women of the Fur Trade, that bring other worlds and other times to life. We have one of the most famous plays in the English language, Waiting for Godot, that brings the essence of our existence to the table.
So Holiday in Zurich is that wonderful, delicious course that, when you see it come to the table, you are excited because it is something very familiar but done with the very best ingredients. This play offers a great love story told through the lives of people who we might see in our own neighbourhood right now. It explores the lives of a couple who deal with issues that all couples face at some point, whether it’s vacation plans, sex, or mortality. And it celebrates some of the most accomplished theatre artists in Montreal.
WM: Holiday in Zurich takes place in 2009 and follows a couple in their 70s; what makes their story relevant to broader audiences?
Holmes: Colleen Murphy set the play in 2009 so the characters could grapple with the kinds of conversations that led Canada as a whole to adopt legislation giving people with terminal illness the right to manage their end-of-life choices. She is a playwright who is always looking for ways to bring the most pressing questions of our times and our country to the stage.
WM: What does it mean to have a cast and crew with all this history at Centaur?
Holmes: It is a privilege to be able to bring a cast and crew with such a huge amount of talent and experience back to the theatre. Director Micheline Chevrier, actor Brian Dooley and playwright Colleen Murphy have been collaborating here and elsewhere for over 30 years. So this show celebrates that collective experience.
WM: Why is it important to program new plays at Centaur?
Holmes: It is essential for Centaur – which is still right in the middle of Montreal – to offer as wide a range of theatrical experiences as possible to our audience. It is also important for us to elevate and celebrate the talent that gives us such a unique identity as a city, a province and a country. As part of that overall mission, new plays can open up conversations of who we are and what it means to be part of this unique and vital society in this exciting city.
WM: What do you hope audiences will take away from the show?
Holmes: I hope people come away with their hearts warmed by the epic love that Frank and Tiny share, and by how that love gives them the courage and strength to face everything life throws at them. As Céline Dion says – our hearts will go on.
Holiday in Zürich
Holiday in Zürich gives us much to discuss on the way home—not only about the choices Frank and Tiny face, but about how we listen to, care for and stand by those we love. With its finely judged performances and blend of humour and heartache, this Centaur production offers a moving evening of theatre. Catch it before its run ends on November 22.
Images: Andrée Lanthier
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Irwin Rapoport is a freelance journalist and community advocate from Westmount with bachelor’s degrees in History and Political Science from Concordia University. He writes extensively on local politics, education, and environmental issues, and promotes informed public discourse and democracy through his writing and activism.
