Alumnae Theatre Blood Relations

TORONTO—Alumnae Theatre continues our 2014-2015 season with Sharon Pollock’s Governor General’s award-winning play Blood Relations January 23-February 7, 2015. Pollock’s play takes us on a psychological journey, bringing the past to life in a search for a possible answer, a motive. The only suspect, the real Lizzie Borden, was acquitted of murdering her father and stepmother, but in Blood Relations, the chilling question still repeats.

“Did you Lizzie? Did you?”

Rather than centering on the grisly details of the murders, the play focusses on the patriarchal oppressive society Lizzie Borden (played by Marisa King) has endured. Lizzie’s friend, and lover, The Actress (Andrea Brown) play a game of memory and imagination, reenacting moments of Lizzie’s life leading up to the murders as a play-in-a-play. Kathleen Jackson Allamby, Steven Burley, Rob Candy, Sheila Russell, and Thomas Gough play the cast of characters in Lizzie’s life. Director Barbara Larose has assembled an extremely talented cast and production team to bring this psychological murder mystery to the Alumnae Theatre MainStage.

“If no one looks in the mirror, I’m not even there. I don’t exist.”

Larose’s direction explores the play’s central themes of identity and the masks we wear. Blood Relations “asks questions about what is truth and about how we, as a society, treat those who are different in any way,” says Larose. “One of the more brilliant aspects of the play is how it speaks to us individually — who has not questioned their identity – their very worth – at one point or other in their lives?”

Blood Relations features a design and artistic team that includes Gabriel Cropley (lighting designer), Ed Rosing (set designer), Margaret Spence (costume designer), Rick Jones (sound designer) and Ellen Green (assistant director).

Calendar of this theater event