Oh, the Humanity and Other Good Intentions by Will Eno
April 2 - 6, 2024
Directed by Suzie Martin
Scenic Design by Alyssa Jackson
Lighting Design by Lovissa Wiens
Costume Design by Amelia Carlson
ACTF Theatre, 400 Colony Street (enter off Balmoral)
Free admission
ONLINE RESERVATIONS HERE
In Oh, the Humanity, the six-person 4th-year Honours Acting ensemble plays 9 characters across 5 stand-alone scenes. This artfully crafted chamber play deftly weaves form and content together to face the humour, beauty, and pain of the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.
“The people of this world seem unrelated—just a series of unremarkable people in their unremarkable lives grappling with their various longings and uncertainties,” says director Suzie Martin. “What unites them is their burning need to communicate, to understand themselves and their circumstances. They pour out oceans of language to reach across the infinite space between self and other, but somehow all that language serves to obscure rather than reveal—or creates rifts rather than building connections. Eno offers us a theatrical world where the borders literally shift, the technology betrays us, words fail to communicate, where beauty cannot offer meaning, and the very fabric of reality seems unreliable.”
A graduate of the University of Winnipeg and the University of Alberta, Martin is the Artistic Director of Theatre Projects Manitoba for whom she recently directed among men (in co-production with Royal MTC). In 2020, she was directing People Places and Things for this Department when the pandemic shut everything down. We are delighted to have her back directing with us again and look forward to getting the play to the stage this time!
Student designers Alyssa Jackson (set), Amelia Carlson (costumes), and Lovissa Wiens (lighting) bring Eno’s nostalgic strangeness to vivid life in a dynamic production design including moving walls, otherworldly costumes, and video elements (edited by design professor Adam Parboosingh). The rest of the production team is made up of senior production students.
Performances are Tuesday, April 2 through Saturday, Apr 6 at 7:30 pm at the Asper Centre for Theatre and Film (400 Colony St). Admission is free, but reservations are recommended.
Content Warning: this play articulates descriptions of plane crashes, illness, and sudden death. There will be camera flashes and use of water-based theatrical haze.
ONLINE TICKET RESERVATIONS THROUGH OUR NEW SYSTEM HERE or call our 24-hour reservation line 204-786-9152. (Please note: same-day reservations close at 5 pm each day; tickets usually available at the door.)