The Phoenix Theatre at the University of Victoria has a well-deserved reputation of presenting some of Victoria’s most exciting theatre productions.
The plays can be eclectic and thought-provoking, funny or tragic but they have one thing in common: they're delivered by some of the most promising young actors who, despite being students in the Department of Theatre, are as professional in their craft as anyone in the business.
And they don’t shy away from difficult projects – evidenced by their coming production of Killing Game.
Killing Game is a play by Eugene Ionesco that starts out with an innocuous portrayal of life and ends up with a mysterious and deadly illness that strikes down everyone that it touches.
In the play, however, Ionesco isn’t concerned so much with the death itself as he is with what happens to human beings in a society that perceives itself under threat. It’s a study of how easily the freedom we sometimes take for granted can be compromised and manipulated by fear.
“Of course, this play can’t help but bring forth memories of what happened during the recent COVID pandemic. But it’s not about COVID. We’ve set it in France in about 1918 during a time frame that would have coincided with the Spanish flu, but it’s not about any particular epidemic. It’s about the absurd nature of the human predicament,” says director Conrad Alexandrowicz.
“The absurdity begins with the fact that we are the only species that knows it’s going to die, and it’s how we deal with that that’s central to this play.”
The story transports the audience to a town facing a deadly plague and demonstrates how, as the body count rises, accusations begin to fly, tensions rise and the line between what’s real and what’s absurd is blurred. It’s an examination of how the indiscriminate death count turns the community into a mix of hypocrisy, opportunism and paranoia.
But the play isn’t all dark, as Ionesco was a proponent of a genre of plays defined as the ‘theatre of the absurd.’
“These writers, Ionesco included, didn’t think there was a distinction between the comic and the tragic,” Alexandrowicz says. “For me it’s comedy that has the power to inspire and that involves laughter that is sometimes uncomfortable.”
As an example, Alexandrowicz reflects back on some of the absurd reactions some people had to the COVID pandemic.
“Look at some of the ridiculous things that people believed and still believe – the conspiracy theories that started as a rumour on social media and before you know it, inspired an absurd mob mentality.”
Killing Game, like the other plays presented at the Phoenix Theatre, is made possible by the talent of a whole new generation of theatre artists. The productions involve students, not only as actors, but in every aspect of the productions, from design creation and management of sets to costumes, props, sound and lighting.
“These young people are truly inspiring. They are the next generation of theatre professionals, and this is a chance to see their work now,” Alexandrowicz says.
“These are young people who have lived through a pandemic and who have grown up very quickly … perhaps too quickly… but they are using the theatre and this play to bring you into and expose the world and it’s absurdities.”
Killing Game runs Feb. 13 to 22 at the Phoenix Theatre. Tickets are available here.
