Masked theatre troupe WONDERHEADS brings The Wilds to the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts, March 17

Wordless performance incorporates whimsical puppetry to tell the story of a man in search of his missing wife

By emily lyth

WONDERHEADS’s The Wilds.

Shadbolt Centre for the Arts presents WONDERHEADS’s The Wilds on March 17 at 2 pm

VICTORIA-BASED THEATRE COMPANY WONDERHEADS approaches the performing arts in a unique way. Rather than expressing themselves through dialogue and facial expressions, the troupe’s actors don full-face handcrafted masks—and they don’t say a word.

In The Wilds, a man named Wendell journeys into a mysterious forest in search of his wife Tilda, who has gone missing along with the pair’s beloved backyard tree. As he treks through an ever-shifting landscape and encounters strange creatures, Wendell must learn the secrets of The Wilds to reunite with his love.

The show, which also incorporates puppets designed by Kate Braidwood and Andrew Phoenix, is described as a thrilling mix of Pixar’s endearing movie magic, Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli whimsy, and Muppets mastermind Jim Henson’s artistry.

Founded by artistic directors Braidwood and Phoenix in 2009, WONDERHEADS now has five original productions in its repertoire: 2009’s Grim and Fischer, 2012’s LOON, 2014’s The Middle of Everywhere, 2018’s The Wilds, and 2019’s A WONDERHEADS Christmas Carol.

Braidwood has trained in mask-making and performance under the likes of Bruce Marrs, Joan Schirle, and Ronlin Foreman, and has worked with Berlin-based masked theatre company Familie Flöz. She is also trained in the Italian masked theatre form Commedia Dell’Arte. The multitalented co-artistic director diligently creates the full-face masks for every WONDERHEADS show by hand, a process that can take her anywhere from 50 to 80 hours per mask.

The upcoming performance of The Wilds at the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts in Burnaby is part of a larger B.C. tour that has already circled to Surrey, Coquitlam, Vernon, Trail, and Nelson.

Audiences outside of the Lower Mainland can catch the production’s remaining stops in Golden, Victoria, Duncan, and Courtenay throughout March.  

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