“A nightmarish funhouse of mirrors” as Théâtre la Seizième presents Polygraph, January 24 and 25

The latest installment in the company’s ÉCHO(S): staged readings series is coproduced by Pi Theatre

By Gail Johnson

Robert Lepage. Photo by V. Tony Hauser

Théâtre la Seizième and Pi Theatre present Polygraph on January 24 and 25 at 2 pm and 7:30 pm at Studio 16

FOR THE NEXT installment of its ÉCHO(S): staged readings series, Théâtre la Seizième is putting on Robert Lepage and Marie Brassard’s Polygraph in partnership with Pi Theatre.

The story takes place in Quebec City in the summer of 1986. Police are looking for the perpetrator of the rape and murder of a young university student. The suspect, a close friend of the victim and the last person to have seen her alive, is subjected to a lie detector test, “the polygraph”. As law enforcement attempts to solve the case amid confounding leads, a film crew is making a movie about the crime. Polygraph is part police thriller, part philosophical labyrinth, described by la Seizième as a “nightmarish funhouse of mirrors in which truth and falsehood blur to obscure reality”.

Richard Wolfe.

Cory Haas. Photo by Gaëtan Nerincx

Co-directed by Théâtre la Seizième artistic director Cory Haas and Pi Theatre artistic director Richard Wolfe and translated by Gyllian Raby, the reading features a cast of three: Sean Sonier, Christiaan Westerveld, and Mia Wistaff.

The decision to present Polygraph in a staged reading pays tribute to la Seizième’s historical collaboration with local Anglophone companies, notably Pi Theatre (formerly Pink Ink Theatre), which was instrumental in introducing Québécois and Franco-Canadian dramaturgy in English to Vancouver audiences. The 1992 production of the show marked the first time Lepage agreed to have one of his texts produced outside his own company.

Being performed in French and English with surtitles, the reading is in celebration of the 40th anniversary of Pi Theatre and the 50th anniversary of Théâtre la Seizième. 

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