Erased; written and directed by Colleen Shirin MacPherson is currently running at Theatre Passe Muraille.  It’s a surrealist black comedy about a post climate catastrophe capitalist autocracy.  Unfortunately it doesn’t really hit the mark.  To be fair, black comedy with a serious core is desperately difficult to do and about the only person I can think of who could bring off a successful treatment of this subject is Arnando Ianucci.  This just isn’t in the ball park.

Basically we have a run down greeting card factory where three workers are producing tacky AI inspired greeting cards for a non existent market.  Getting a factory job is seen as a big step up compared to scraping a living in the UV basted world outside.  The workers are subjected to a sort of parody of Japanese team building techniques backed up by Room 406 where dissidents “disappear”.

The line is supervised by Margie (Nancy McAlear) whose ability to spout meaningless and reality free corporate drivel would make her an ideal middler manager at IBM.  She’s backed up by Grace (Sochi Fried) who is just trying to keep her head down while having disturbing surrealistic dreams.  Finally there’s newbie René (Kat Khan) who just can’t get with the programme and is disappeared,  She’s replaced by Oliver (Rose Tuong) who is the sort of starry eyed idealist who believes in “collective liberation that is possible if only we can all imagine it, together” (quoted from the director’s notes).  Apparently he saved a bunch of books from destruction but clearly none of them was by Lenin.

Eventually the ghosts of the Disappeared rise up and destroy the factory and, by implication, the Uppers who appear to be the ruling elite.  Margie can’t accept this new reality and continues to parrot the party line (she really would do well at IBM).  What the future holds is entirely unclear.

Lets try and find some positives.  The use of the space is clever with shadowy Disappeareds flitting around in the shadows on the galleries.  The lighting and sound design are excellent and effective.  There are some decent visual gags; especially the grotesque pedal powered production line.  And I get the motivation, I really do.  But that’s about it.

Erased continues at Theatre Passe Muraille until November 30th.

Photo credit: Henry Chan