Theatre review: In a screen-filled space, Pi Theatre's Truth and Lies short plays expose dark sides of our digital interactions
Innovative, immersive storytelling abounds in works about everyone from a Mommy vlogger to content moderators
Kwasi Thomas, Carmel Amit, Robert Garry Haacke, and Manuela Sosa star in Truth and Lies. Photo by Emily Cooper
Pi Theatre presents Truth and Lies is at the Vancouver Opera Rehearsal Space (1955 McLean Drive) to June 25
TRUTH AND LIES, a production by Pi Theatre, creates an immersive experience akin to entering a media-art installation.
In the Vancouver Opera Rehearsal Space, four floating mesh screens serve as the production’s sole stationary set pieces. Entering a stageless and seatless room, the audience is encouraged to freely move around, only mindful of not obstructing the actors' light. An immediate sense of excitement and intrigue fills the air.
A tightly curated anthology directed by Richard Wolfe and Libby Willoughby, Truth and Lies comprises three stand-alone plays and a complementary VR narrative. Each short play, written by a different playwright, explores an amplified dimension of our everyday technological interactions. Through innovative storytelling and staging, this production compellingly portrays the pervasiveness of technology, emphasizing our vulnerability to its nefarious influence.
QAmom, written by Sebastien Archibald, unveils the hidden depths of an ostensibly harmless online relationship depicted through direct-message exchanges. The production interweaves intermittent YouTube videos from a Mommy vlogger whose content becomes radicalized, the play gradually exposing the perils of online echo chambers.
Crafting a thrilling horror-comedy, Sin Eaters of the 21st Century (by Vishesh Abeyratne) sheds light on the rarely explored viewpoint of content moderators. Pointing to the dark reality of the people who shoulder the burden of sanitizing our access to content, the short comedy offers a compelling look at the psychological and emotional effects of the job.
In Lucia Frangione’s Disrupted, a group of individuals—including a climate-conscious politician, a TikTok cosplay star, an ASMR content creator, and a pair of Russian operatives—become intertwined through their online connections and presence, leading to catastrophic consequences that directly affect their vested interests.
Following the three short plays, Smother Me In Your Love (by Pippa Mackie) offers audiences the opportunity to explore VR. Loosely inspired by Othello, this 10-minute experience immerses you physically and virtually in Pi Theatre's office/library space, where you bear witness to a troubling incident that directly implicates you as an active viewer.
All four narratives showcase performers Kwasi Thomas, Carmel Amit, Robert Garry Haacke, and Manuela Sosa in multiple roles across each piece. Each actor skillfully navigates between characters (occasionally with different accents), seamlessly alternating each performance with the required balance of comically heightened and genuine emotion.
QAmom, Sin Eaters, and Disrupted intricately weave the virtual realm into their narratives. Disrupted, the most ambitious in terms of scope, is enhanced by a multitude of multimedia elements, including live projections of Facetime calls, TikToks, Tweets, message boards, video projections of climate disasters, and even the incorporation of a binaural mic that transports the story's moments of ASMR directly to the audience’s ears.
Viewers will find themselves turning their head to the various screens and scenes unfolding all around them. Immersive music, sound and projection design by David Mesiha and lighting design by Jacob Wan similarly place you in the middle of the action.
In Sin Eaters, these elements are also used to disorienting and comedic effect. To conjure up the unimaginable stress the employees are subjected to, there’s ear-splitting dark metal, strobe-like lighting, and glitchy footage that’s immediately followed by inane elevator music.
An absurdist streak runs through all of the plays, but what makes Truth and Lies most prescient is its cold grip on reality. In QAmom, the main character's viewing habits deteriorate into an unhealthy and dangerous pursuit for control and purpose. In Sin Eaters, escalating tension in the story stems from the plight of the company's undocumented workers, who are compelled to take on the job out of necessity without any mental well-being support.
Presenting its truths and provocations in a disorienting barrage of virtual noise, Truth and Lies leaves you jarred, introspective, and amused.
Mirroring the inescapable interconnection of the modern world and the chaotic interplay between public and private spheres, the production has enough ingenious staging and storytelling tp make for a highly engaging evening—not to mention a sobering wakeup call to reevaluate our relationship to technology.
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