OF THE CAUSES OF WONDERFUL THINGS to Run 11/4-8 at Theatre La Chapelle

Created in Sydney, Australia, through a series of funded residencies, Of The Causes of Wonderful Things is Talya Rubin's latest devised creation: a moving, intricate and darkly comic installation theatre piece (for a limited audience of 50) about five children who disappear in a small town in the American South. Directed and co-devised by Nick James, Of The Causes of Wonderful Things will draw you into its world from November 4-8 at Théâtre La Chapelle.

Using projections, miniature dioramas, evocative lighting and an immersive sound design, Of The Causes of Wonderful Things creates worlds that are uncanny, subtle and mysterious. Says director and co-devisor Nick James, "The work plays with scale and the worlds range from a Brechtian 'real' world where the lights come up and the performer talks to the audience, to supernatural, small and unusual worlds that exist both above and below ground." The audience is limited, offering a close-up to see tiny dioramas take shape, expressing the realm of the missing children, in contrast to the adult world that exists alongside it.

Writer, devisor, performer Talya Rubin wanted a small, intimate audience so that they couldn't turn away. She explains, "Because so much of our engagement these days is passive, it disconnects us from feeling, which I think is a great loss." The work has the atmosphere of film noir and a very purposeful DIY aesthetic, with almost entirely performer-operated lighting. This unsettling solo work has tones of the Southern Gothic and combines a powerful text with a dark comic sensibility and a unique visual language.

Rubin, alone on stage, builds a multi-layered narrative, with a cast of unusual characters: the spinster Aunt who 'loses' the children, her hermit Japanese neighbour, an MC on a Town Hall stage (a surreal portal to the dead), a detective who has never done anything meaningful in his life until he is handed this case, the children themselves and their mother and her lover - a noir and twisted puppet. The audience is asked to assemble the accumulating fragments as the story unfolds. The show explores how the darkest, most dreaded things can sometimes serve to wake people and make them more alive. Rubin says of the work that, "it is in the end, about redemption, and how going into this darkness reveals beauty." She adds, "I feel like it was with this piece that I truly found my voice as a theatre creator. It also means a lot to be doing it here in Montreal, as it was created so far away. It's an amazing thing to be bringing it home."

Rubin's past work has been described as: "An experience that is at once absolutely familiar, and entirely mysterious." (The Melbourne Age) and "Extraordinary must-see piece of theatre... the writing is out of this world. 5/5" (The Adelaide Advertiser). She has previously performed her solo work at The Montreal Fringe Festival and at Centaur Theatre's Wildside Festival and was the winner of the Bronwen Wallace Award for a writer under the age of 35 not yet published in book form. Her first collection of poetry, Leaving the Island, will be published by Vehicule Press in the spring of 2015.

Sound Design-Hayley Forward, Lighting Design-Richard Vabre, Visual Concept and Design- Talya Rubin, Dramaturgy-Campion Decent.
Tickets: $29 regular, $25 students/seniors/artists, $22 early-bird special- book with box office in person or over the phone with the code 'WONDERFUL' until 31 October
Box Office: 514 843-7738 or purchase online: La Chapelle box office
Seating limited to 50 people
Post-show talkback with the artist on Wed. November 5

 

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