An article written by Matthew Aitken.
Theatre is always best when it scrutinizes society, its citizens and the way those citizens interact. Hardline Productions's Heptademic Redux, playing at this year's Fringe Festival is a play about Vancouver in a fishbowl.
Seven characters are rounded up and placed in quarantine. A deadly virus is threatening the lives of everyone in the world. Homes and neighbourhoods have been evacuated. The characters are ushered into a room and left. They don't have much information about their predicament.
"It's a microcosom of society at large in this room; it's an exploration of their fears and dreams," said Heptademic Redux's director, Anthony F. Ingram.
Heptademic Redux was written by the cast, and all seven writers created characters representing all walks of life. Much of the confict is drawn from the characters' different points of view.
"The characters come from every social strata; everything from politicians to welfare cases. When an audience comes in, they should see the society they live in refected on stage.
While the characters represent various social classes and mindsets, the multi-ethnic cast brings a diversty to the stage that Ingram feels is desperately needed in Vancouver theatre. Ethnicity is never discussed by the characters in Heptademic Redux because, as Ingram points out, “in real-life it’s not really an issue for most of us.”
But when the demographics of people living in the Lower Mainland are compared to the demographicsof actors on Lower Mainland stages, a disparity quickly emerges."The actors in this play are the next generation of Vancouver Theatre and they refect the city they live in. I hope the people with money to produce mainstage theatre in this town come to see this show, and see how it could be,” Ingram said.
It could be cast like Heptademic Redux, where every person involved is equal. The show has played once before as part of Studio 58's Risky Nights series in October 2008.
Co-writer and performer Andrea Yu thinks Heptademic deserves the Redux tag because of its strong sense of collaboration.
When she started approaching people about staging it at the Fringe, “everyone wanted to be involved,” she said.
“Everyone had a strong connection to it. Heptademic has a big sense of play. The actors are genuinely playing with each other and it's fun.”
Every actor in Heptademic Redux is on stage for the whole hour. Confned to a room, the actors don't have any opportunity to get out of the light.
“Even if someone doesn't have lines for a scene, they're onstage. That has to be worked in,” Yu said.
At frst, the characters are uncertain and have a few questions about their one-room confnement. But as they accept their short-term fate, they start to get along and relax.
And when they relax, their minds drift off into fantasy.“The fantasies are hyper-truth,” said Yu.
The goal is to present a full character, someone with real hopesand dreams, legitimate concerns and needs. All of the characters are hiding aspects of theirpersonalities from the others in the room and when they are laid out, the result can be hilarious or horrifying.
“In real life, you only reveal a certain percentage of yourself. If you lived all out there, all the time, you'dbe a cartoon,” said Yu.
The creative team behind Heptademic Redux hopes the audience is engaged by the actors' strong performances and the suggestion that no matter how different people are, they can get along. “If there’s a message; it's to look at the fullness of another person,” said Ingram
