A review of the play
In Memoriam

Playwright Michael Tall and director Aidan Cottreau comment on the play and their artistic influences

By Irwin Rapoport

Updated August 21, 2025

A Broke Theatre, fresh off its 2024 META Innovation Award win, is premiering Michael Tall’s new play In Memoriam with performances on August 15 to 17 and August 22 to 24 at the White Wall Studio in the Plateau.

The psychological horror-thriller, directed by Aidan Cottreau, is described as a “deeply atmospheric production [that] delves into grief, family trauma, and Jewish burial traditions as two estranged brothers confront a terrifying presence in their childhood home.”

The cast consists of META-winner Simon Pelletier and Sam Beaton. In Memoriam, according to the press release, “blends stark emotional realism with theatrical illusion, expressive in-the-round staging, and live Chopin piano nocturnes.”

… [a] deeply atmospheric production [that] delves into grief, family trauma, and Jewish burial traditions as two estranged brothers confront a terrifying presence in their childhood home.

To further enhance the atmosphere, the audience is asked to dress as if they were attending a funeral.

In the Q&A below, playwright Michael Tall and director Aidan Cottreau spoke about the play and the production.

Simon Pelletier (L) with Sam Beaton

WM: What drew you to examine the themes of the play, and how would you describe the research process?

Tall: I’m interested in the places where tradition fractures, where ethics collapse, where belief turns uncanny. My work interrogates Jewish identity at its most unstable. My first play, The Beinoni, explored this through a disillusioned salesman who discovers his Jewishness not in synagogue but through chaotic, unlikely encounters: a pagan girlfriend, a Rastafarian musician, a Hindu bodybuilder, a Muslim coworker. It was about dispelling myths and watching identities mutate.

In Memoriam turns inward. Two brothers haunted by their dead mother dig through memory, trauma, and inherited ritual, looking for meaning in the bones. It’s deeply personal, but not comfortably so. My research is embodied. It is reacting to the past and the present. It is grief work. Dream logic. Burial.

WM: How would you describe your writing process, and in particular, for this play?

Tall: In Memoriam began as a ritual for one actor, titled Resurrection. Then two distinct voices emerged: Cameron and Ian. The elder brother, Cameron, is composed, practical, and emotionally distant, and he runs from the past. Ian is volatile, obsessive, and soft. He revels in his grief and, in dreams, is seemingly incapacitated in the family home. They reflect two ways of carrying pain, of misremembering love. Two imperfect ways of becoming men. Some moments in the play are lifted directly from my childhood. I also spent time in conversation with my grandfather, learning how our family left Eastern Europe, what got left behind, and what followed us.

WM: What do you hope audiences will take away from the themes you explored?

Tall: That we can grieve together.

WM: Who are your favourite playwrights and what are some of the plays that stand out for you?

Tall: I found Sarah Kane very liberating to read. The Lieutenant of Inishmore by Martin McDonagh was inspiring. Antigone, produced by Sky’s The Limit Theatre and written by Banafshe Hasani, is a vital new work.

WM: How did you prepare to direct this play, and how did you select the cast and the music?

Cottreau: I consumed everything I could about Jewish curses, nightmares, and burial traditions. I then searched the text for some artifacts I could pull from it, finding some symbols to be present with the action. I knew this would not be staged in a proscenium, so everything needed to feel necessary, haunted, and handmade.

‘As for music, Chopin’s nocturnes offered a delicate intensity, the tightrope this play attempts to walk. Chopin, who shares the French/Polish background of the characters, was also a documented antisemite.’

– Aidan Cottreau, director, In Memoriam

Casting Simon Pelletier and Sam Lemieux was instinctive. They bring wildly different energies. Simon has a grounded, almost mythic weight to him, perfect for Cameron, the brother who left, who needs control. Sam is volatile, vulnerable, and searching. That’s Ian. They both bring so much generosity into the rehearsal space, and they both wear multiple hats: Simon as costume designer and Sam as co-producer. That’s the nature of A Broke Theatre.

As for music, Chopin’s nocturnes offered a delicate intensity, the tightrope this play attempts to walk. Chopin, who shares the French/Polish background of the characters, was also a documented antisemite. His music becomes part of the haunting. It’s a cultural inheritance we don’t fully trust, but can still mourn to. Classical piano is a soft spot for me, something I learned as a child that I felt I could offer the performers. I will be performing the music live throughout the show.

WM: In a play such as this, maintaining the sombre and gloomy atmosphere is crucial. How did you achieve this?

Cottreau: We had to be honest, almost naive. To endure the pain within the play and to make it truthful, we had to approach from a place of love. This underlying bond gives the tension and space for the characters to change, to be affected by each other, and to fail. The characters humiliate each other, wound each other, but always in the name of the familial, fraternal love that they have. The audience is left asking: What kind of brotherly love is this? That cruelty wrapped in tenderness is what sustains the play’s somberness.

WM: What drew you to directing theatre productions? Could you tell us about your previous productions and how you prepared for them?

Cottreau: My background is in acting. I hold a BFA specialization in Acting from Concordia University. Also, the Poor Theatre of Grotowski was the body from which A Broke Theatre has been reincarnated, so I focus almost entirely on the actors.

When I directed Michael’s first play, The Beinoni, I also played the lead role – this made directing very easy because I could guide the scenes from the inside, and insisted on feedback from my scene partner in turn. It was like each scene was co-directed by me and the other actor present. The other production elements were then shaped around the demands we found through rehearsal. In The Beinoni, we needed an omniscient third eye to thread the action and attention from scene to scene, the all-judging eye of god, which took the form of a live feed projected throughout the space.

‘The characters humiliate each other, wound each other, but always in the name of the familial, fraternal love that they have. The audience is left asking: What kind of brotherly love is this? That cruelty wrapped in tenderness is what sustains the play’s somberness.’

– Aidan Cottreau, director, In Memoriam

Rosepetal’s Blood Bath is a short film I directed last November; we are just finishing the edit. In the hands of great cinematographers, it was a great experience to learn how to bring out striking performances without participating directly in the scene.

WM: How do you get the best out of the actors you direct, and what are the keys to seamlessly combining the acting, music, lighting, and set design?

Cottreau: A Broke Theatre means that character is not a stable notion either. We take on characters as a means to cut through our daily personhood, unveiling the spiritual change that occurs within the actor during the performance, the part that cannot tell fact from fiction. I try to give them as much of the static performance as possible, from precise staging to even delivery. Then the actor can almost fall backwards into their performance and be swept away by an ocean of feeling that has been unlocked from within. We worked with a lot of Meisner repetitions to break down the daily mask. For an actor to achieve this kind of openness for a revelatory performance, they must be confident, relaxed, and open. Then the text does the rest.

The other production elements should only make this task of unveiling easier for the actor, while adding new layers of meaning that compound and amplify each other. The White Wall studio, where we are staging the show, allows an immersive experience for the audience.

WM: Who are the directors that have inspired you, and are there any productions that stand out for you?

Cottreau: Simon Stone describes his process as fragments of text being formed around the actors as the production evolves. I’ve never seen one of his productions, but I love listening to his interview with the legendary Anne Bogart.

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My review

I experienced In Memoriam’s premiere last Friday and was enthralled. With only three remaining shows between August 22 and 24, I highly recommend the play being performed at the White Wall Studio just off of Mont Royal East.

The performance was flawless due to a combination of Michael Tall’s perfect script, superb direction, exceptional acting, and lighting and music that doesn’t skip a beat. The one-act, hour-long play is based on a sparse and simple set brought to life by the dialogue – it is truly theatre of the mind.

The play focuses on two brothers, Cameron (Simon Pelletier), the eldest, and Ian (Sam Beaton), a few years younger. We encounter them in the home of their recently deceased mother. The audience, seated in a semi-circle, is literally peering into their discussion, and at times one of the characters departs the stage by walking through the seating and then returns. While I cannot reveal any details, each son is fully fleshed out, and the dialogue is extremely realistic and descriptive. They spoke and interacted like actual brothers, and while uttering the lines is crucial, the physical element of their relationship is seamless and critical.

I experienced In Memoriam’s premiere last Friday and was enthralled… The performance was flawless due to a combination of Michael Tall’s perfect script, superb direction, exceptional acting, and lighting and music that doesn’t skip a beat.

We, the audience, enter their world, and it is gripping. The two months of rehearsing are on full display as director Aidan Cottreau and Beaton and Pelletier strive to create the atmosphere of family trauma with a twist of the supernatural and Jewish mysticism. Chopin’s Nocturnes, played live by Cottreau, enhance the atmosphere and are deftly interspersed throughout the performance. The lighting is basic, but it plays its essential part. This is a team effort, and I can easily imagine the moment when Eureka was shouted.

The main prop was simplicity itself and key to the play.

So, if you have the opportunity to see In Memoriam, please do. Bring a few friends, as the themes it explores shall certainly have you pondering them afterwards. You will not be disappointed.

White Wall Studio is located at 4532 Laval Avenue. The entrance is on the side of a wide alley, just north of Mont Royal East. The best way to get there by public transit is to exit the Mont Royal Metro station and walk west along the north side of Mont Royal for about four blocks.

Images: Casey Marie Ecker