La lumière impossible (work-in-progress)

Cultural mediation activity for all
10 years +

 

Part of the Café-causerie: Budding creations! event, presented in front of an audience and livestreamed on Facebook and YouTube.

In a casual setting, four creative teams present their work-in-progress and answer questions from the public eager to learn more about the various stages involved in the development of a puppet show.

 

La lumière impossible

A young man living with his fiancée is one day seized by overwhelming anxiety and leaves his home, with no apparent explanation, to go off and explore caves. He becomes obsessed with caves, and with stories about caves. He has no experience in this field, and after a few hours in a cave, a rock drops behind him and he is trapped inside. In panic mode, he searches for an escape route and finds a light coming from a gap in the cave. But when he approaches the light, it moves. The light appears to be playing with his patience… and to be alive.

Locked in a prison of stone, the man develops a relationship with this impossible light… In this light he sometimes finds hope, hatred, regret, humour or comfort, and finally a more profound sense of himself. At one point, he observes as this mysterious light disappears, and at that very moment he is found by local rescuers.

Like a child whose toy has been taken away, he does not want to leave the cave, and he closes his eyes to avoid the massive, painful light that shines in his eyes as he leaves. In the blinding sun, he can no longer see the light he has developed a deep relationship with.

Techniques: object and shadow puppetry

Audience: all ages, 13 years +

 

Video

 

Photos

Photo: Jon Lachlan Stewart

Company

Jon is a bilingual actor, stage director and artistic director of Théâtre Surreal SoReal. His co-creation and stage direction of Macbeth Muet has toured the United States, Europe and across Canada. He performed in many productions across Canada with companies such as The Citadel Theatre and L’UniThéâtre (Edmonton), La Seizième and Zee Zee (Vancouver), The Segal Centre and Théâtre Prospero ( Montréal).

He directed Madame Catherine prépare sa classe de troisième à l’irrémédiable (Prospero, Carrefour International, L’Uni Théâtre), Le Petit Prince (Crows’ Theatre), Ruddigore (Lakeshore Light Opera), Macbeth Muet (international tour), TONG (La Fille du Laitier), and Before Her Time: 3 Plays by Samuel Beckett (National Theatre School), and translated Tracy Letts’ Killer Joe (public reading, La Licorne) He wrote Big Shot, his own bilingual solo show, and has been performing it across Canada since 2008. He recently directed and produced The King Stinks, and wrote and directed Jonathan: La figure du Goéland, a play featuring three actors with disabilities.

 

Credits

Story, stage direction, music and performance: Jon Lachlan Stewart

Scenography and puppets: Jon Lachlan Stewart and Dominique Hawry

Lighting: Dominique Hawry

Outside eyes: Olivier Ducas and Hélène Ducharme