Theatre Conspiracy‘s Extraction uses an innovative mix of real stories and audience participation to get under the surface of the workings of the international oil industry, focusing particularly on its effects on Beijing and Fort McMurray. Extraction‘s three storytellers are not professional theatre performers – Jimmy Mitchell, a Canadian journalist and diplomat who spent the majority of his career in China and Taiwan, grinned as he told the audience that once he finished a degree in theatre, he knew he was done with acting forever. Jason Wilson is a member of the Dene and Gitxsan nations who worked as an oil worker and a safety inspector on the Fort McMurray tarsands. He won the crowd over by welcoming “the chiefs, the honoured guests, and the rest of ya.” And Sunny Sun is a Chinese academic from Beijing who recently immigrated to Vancouver. All three have an appealing stage presence that more than makes up for a lack of polish. Extraction feels more like a conversation with friendly raconteurs than a political diatribe.

This casual feel is belied by the play’s digs at government and corporate hypocrisy and dissembling. Wilson’s tales of oil company neglect of worker safety and a hear-no-evil attitude towards whistleblowers intertwine with Mitchell and Sun’s anecdotes about the Chinese government’s reinterpretation of everyday life in Beijing. Sun and Mitchell switch between Chinese and English throughout the play, and the three performers focus on the ambiguities of language and translation, telling funny stories of the misunderstandings language barriers cause.

These gaps take on a more sinister tinge when the script compares the Canadian government’s insistence on calling the extraction fields oilsands rather than tarsands to the government of China blithely referring to Beijing’s deadly smog as “fog.” The discursive nature of Extraction‘s format means that some of the performer’s stories don’t cohere with the play’s larger themes. Yet the audience leaves with a sense of really having gotten to know the three lives at Extraction‘s centre.

The democratic approach to storytelling is reinforced by a charmingly lo-fi audience poll using text message, about questions ranging from whether the audience members used a car to get to the theatre to who should have the right to decide the proper terms for the tarsands. The backdrop screen shows Mandarin and English subtitles in beautiful scripts, as well as photos and clever animations. The stage’s ingenious hidden drawers demonstrate exactly how much tarsand was used in the making of Extraction, though the calculation did not take into account a very professionally handled mid-show fire alarm. Despite the deafening bell, the polite Canadian audience did not start leaving their seats until Mitchell assured us that the alarm was not part of the script. On our way out one theatregoer joked that it must have been Stephen Harper shutting down dissent.

Ironically, Theatre Conspiracy received the funding to research and produce Extraction by winning the Rio Tinto Alcan Performing Arts Award, an endowment created by a Canadian mining company. The Rio Tinto executive spoke after the play to announce this year’s endowment recipient, and appeared suitably abashed by the play he had unleashed on the world. Making company flacks feel uncomfortable is just one good reason to see this insightful exploration into the industry that just might end up defining our country’s future.

Extraction runs until March 9th at the Cultch. Tickets at thecultch.com or call 604.251.1363