Summer 1986, in Quebec City. The police are on the hunt for the perpetrator of the rape and murder of a young university student. The suspect, a close friend of the victim and the last person to have seen her alive, is subjected to a lie detector test, “the Polygraph.” While efforts are made to solve the case amidst the confusing leads, a film crew is making a movie about the murder. Polygraph is close to a police thriller, yet it plunges us into a philosophical labyrinth, a nightmarish funhouse of mirrors in which truth and falsehood blur to obscure reality. Can anything be done to uncover the truth?
The decision to present Polygraph in a reading pays tribute to la Seizième’s historical collaboration with local Anglophone companies, notably Pi Theatre (formerly Pink Ink Theatre), which introduced Quebecois and Franco-Canadian dramaturgy in English to Vancouver audiences. Polygraph marks the first time Robert Lepage agreed to have one of his texts produced by someone else.
Text Marie Brassard and Robert Lepage
Direction Cory Haas, Richard Wolfe
Translation Gyllian Raby
Stage management Melanie Thompson
Presented with Pi Theatre
