New year, new light: Our writers pick some of the Quebec artists to watch in 2021 (via the Montreal Gazette)

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Originally posted January 1, 2021

By Jim Burke

‘Arun Varma gave a complex performance in Counter Offence. Teesri Duniya’s production closed last March due to the pandemic, but there are plans to revive it this year.’

ARUN VARMA SKILLED IN THE SCIENCE OF MORALLY AMBIGUOUS CHARACTERS

As with Godot, championing an actor to look out for in 2021 might lead to a long wait, given the circumstances. But going by Arun Varma’s track record, it’s sure to be worth it.

In Teesri Duniya’s Counter Offence, which closed in March due to the pandemic, Varma played a thunderously righteous anti-racism campaigner, yet made us uneasy about following him. Before that, he played several roles in Persephone’s production of Blue Stockings, including a romantic lead who was thoroughly likable — until he wasn’t. It seems to be a particular skill of Varma to lure an audience into rooting for his characters before the realization they’re on very shaky ground.

“I really enjoy those roles — the ones that you’re never sure whether you like them or not,” Varma said. “One I’d love to play is Edmund from King Lear.”

That makes sense: Shakespeare’s brutally rationalist villain would sit well with Varma’s knack of suggesting a flinty intellectualism ballasting unruly passions.

Varma, 27, was raised in India and arrived in Montreal by way of the University of Toronto, where he graduated in neuroscience. His parents’ hopes were for him to become a doctor, but acting took a hold when he enrolled in the campus drama society.

“To this day, I really like science,” said Varma, “but after I graduated, I took a year off and told myself, ‘OK, I’ll see which one I miss more.’ ”

The results of his choice will hopefully be seen when, as planned, Teesri Duniya revives Counter Offence in 2021. Varma, who is currently in Black Theatre Workshop’s mentorship program, is also waiting, hopefully not too Godot-like, to make his directing debut with Snowglobe Theatre’s production of Pinter’s marvellous existential gangster caper The Dumb Waiter.