We all share the struggle to find meaning in our lives, whether it be through love, loss or suffering. Sometimes it's trauma, and the overcoming of trauma, that creates a deeper connection to ourselves and others.
This rang true for performer Pamela Sinha when she drew from personal experiences to write a narrative, not only about a traumatic incident, but about the lifelong healing process through the lens of her posttraumatic stress disorder diagnosis.
Crash is a one-woman play that tells the story of a woman (referred as the girl) who, at her father's funeral, is suddenly faced with memories of a brutal sexual assault she endured by a stranger in her Montreal apartment years earlier.
It premieres at Gateway Theatre tonight (Nov. 15) and runs until Nov. 23 in Studio B. "The play is more than the character of the girl," said Sinha, a first-time playwright. "But at the same time, there was never room for other people except through her memory of them."
The incidents are unrelated, but Sinha links the loss of a family member with the loss of something deeper. Although rooted in a harrowing incident, Crash is ultimately about love and the search for meaning.
"There's deep love in this play," said Sinha. "I hope the audience feels inspired and sees their own love reflected back. It's a human experience - the individual circumstances are the girl's - but it's a journey we all go through to find meaning in our lives.
"I get everything from the audience, and they get everything from me. It's a shared energy."
She may look like the only person on stage, but Sinha said she takes cues from the light, sound and projections around her, which become second, third and fourth characters.
The multimedia narrative is intentionally fragmented as it's told through flashbacks.
"It allows the audience to feel viscerally and engage with their emotions," she said. "It's a rich experience for them. I can tell it's never a passive audience, but there are things going on."
The play is based on a short story Sinha wrote called Hiding, which appeared in Carol Shields' anthology, Dropped Threads 2. She felt the urge to adapt it into a play.
"It was an opportunity to come clean and it was very freeing for me," she said. "I'm very aware of the magic of the theatre, it's my medium as an actress. It allowed me to open my mind more about how I wanted to tell the story, the only limit was my imagination."
She first performed Crash at Toronto's Theatre Passe Muraille last year, which received numerous Dora Awards, including outstanding new play, and was listed as the Globe and Mail's top five plays of 2012.
The experience stuck in the mind of Jovanni Sy, Gateway's artistic director, when he was part of the audience in Toronto.
"I was attracted to its raw power, it was incredibly moving and courageous," he said. "I thought it was one of the best pieces of writing I'd ever seen. I really do think it's one of the best shows the audience will see."
Directed by Alan Dilworth, Sinha insists the development of the play was a collaborative effort with him and other members of the set. It was the first time Dilworth and Sinha had met.
"It was pretty wild to go to such a deep place with someone I'd just met, but we were bound by the desire to make an important, beautiful and lyrical play."
The Gateway premier launches the play's first tour, sponsored by Necessary Angel Theatre Company for three years.
