Alumnae Theatre Company presents OMISSION

Alumnae Theatre's 100th anniversary season continues with the world premiere of Omission, a provocative and haunting new play that questions a papal candidate's involvement in a military coup.

He is the great hope of the Church as it faces a time of crisis, a man to unite the disenchanted and the faithful, a man who can bring the Church into a progressive new era. But is he to be trusted?

On the eve of Papal Conclave, a popular and ambitious South American Cardinal, a front runner in the election for Pope, is interviewed by a young Canadian journalist who claims to hold a secret that could destroy him. She accuses him of complicity with the military in the torture, murder and disappearances of dissidents 30 years before. During the interview, a spectacular confession emerges. Ghosts from the past confront him and the journalist as they engage in an epic confrontation. He must try to convince this stranger who knows too much that being human does not make him an impostor and that he is worthy of redemption.

Playwright Alice Abracen, a young woman living in Montreal, now at National Theatre School in the playwrights' stream, studied religion and theatre at Harvard University and was fiercely interested in whether organized religion, with its dark history, could be a force for social change.

From a young age Alice investigated Liberation Theology in South America and was inspired by the story of Oscar Romero, an Archbishop and prelate of the Catholic Church in El Salvador, who is believed to have been assassinated by the right-wing government while delivering mass.

Alice was also inspired by the new hope of progressiveness offered to the Catholic world by Pope Francis, even with the suggestion of his possible dark past in Argentina.

Omission is deliberately not set in any one country - it explores the relation between faith and political action, between apathy and political courage, and universal questions of redemption.

"So much of our world is in turmoil and as we sit on the sidelines it's easy to judge what should or should not be done," says director Anne Harper. "This play causes us to confront the ethical and practical issues that people in the midst of conflict have to address."

Wednesdays 2-for-1 or $15 for a single ticket, Thursdays to Saturdays $25, Sundays PWYC. Purchase online (alumnaetheatre.com), reserve at 416-364-4170 or pay cash at the door. Box office does not accept credit or debit cards for in-person sales