“We’re all boxed in inside our cubicles, glued to our technology,” says Diane Brown, director of Ruby Slippers Theatre, when I ask her what the inspiration was behind this week’s double bill. Après Moi and The List are two translated Quebecois plays running from January 28th to February 1st at Studio 16. In addition to their francophone origins, the plays share a common theme: human isolation.
“People are not getting the human connection they need as social beings,” Brown explains, “We don’t know how—or we don’t have the courage—to reach out and build those connections.” Apparently, she’s not the only one who feels this way. In a Vancouver Foundation survey conducted in 2012, one in four residents of Metro Vancouver reported feeling alone more often than they would like and one in three reported that they found it difficult to make new friends. This trend toward increasing isolation and disconnection may be linked to poorer health, decreased trust and hardened attitudes toward others in the community. The Foundation poetically calls this effect a “corrosion of caring.”
Theatre, Brown hopes, can be part of the solution to our “corroding” community. Unlike TV or online entertainment, attending a theatre performance is interactive, “a conversation.” Viewers don’t just plug into a screen, they experience the action in an engaging way. A play doesn’t just give viewers a way to pass the time; it “gives [them] something to talk about in the car ride home.”
My commute home from Studio 16 is testament that Brown has achieved her goal.
Both Après Moi and The List are thought provoking pieces. Written by Christian Begin and directed by Brown herself, Après Moi is a collection of repeated moments—the joining of five disconnected but parallel lives under one shabby motel roof off Route 117. Story lines overlap and interweave, resulting in a profoundly human examination of love, lust and letting go. Snippets of TV commercials and splashes of clever irony are integrated into the action, adding humour to an otherwise dark story.
The List, written by Jennifer Tremblay and directed by Jack Paterson, is a 50 minute solo piece starring France Perras. A stunning examination of obsession and guilt, love and family, friendship and sacrifice, The List is the story of an isolated and anxious woman who believes she has murdered her only friend. Evocative set design and dramatic lighting compliment a powerful performance by Perras, drawing the audience into her character’s desolate life in small town Quebec.
Poetically scripted and compellingly executed, Après Moi and The List will give you something to think—and hopefully talk—about.
Studio 16
1555 West 7th Avenue
Show @ 8PM
Tickets: $18.50(student/senior) / $23 (general admission)
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