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Culture Stage

Preview: Crash

CRASH written and performed by Pamela Mala Sinha, directed by Alan Dilworth. Presented by Theatre Passe Muraille (16 Ryerson). Previews begin Friday (April 27), opens Tuesday (May 1) and runs to May 13, Tuesday-Saturday 7:30 pm, matinee Saturday 2 pm. $15-$30. 416-504-7529. See listing.


There’s plenty of drama in Pamela Mala Sinha’s solo show Crash, about the victim of a sexual attack. Its power, though, lies not just in the incident itself but also in the post-traumatic stress the central character faces.

That character, simply called the Girl, has blocked details of the attack from her memory. Her father’s death revives the pain and brings the past to the surface.

“It infuriates me that the media always focus on the events of a trauma but ignore the long-term influence on the victim and family,” says the actor and first-time playwright. “I know how relationships can be affected by a trauma that’s not discussed people live with it daily.”

Sinha intentionally handles the assault by linking it to the loss of a parent.

“Though unrelated, the one event triggers repressed memories of the other. Everyone can relate to a family member’s death, juxtaposed here with a different kind of loss: that of power and innocence, which is part of rape trauma. In each, you lose a part of yourself forever.”

Though based on personal experience, the narrative has been transmuted through art. Sinha’s dealt with the material before in a short story, Hiding, published in Dropped Threads, edited by Carol Shields and Marjorie Anderson.

Download associated audio clip.

“I want to own both losses,” notes Sinha, whose latest theatre work includes appearances in The Penelopiad, The Rez Sisters, Tout Comme Elle and Brothel #9.

“Who I am is shaped by those experiences. But I’m not putting my life onstage. It’s the story of the Girl and how she deals with loss.”

Crash isn’t so much a monologue as a multimedia examination of pain and potential healing, with a structure that’s intentionally fragmented.

Download associated audio clip.

Lighting, soundscape, dance and projection form an integral, interactive web and, along with the text, are used to explore the material – all of which proved a draw for director Alan Dilworth.

“The play has two image systems, seemingly in contrast with each other,” says Dilworth, who helmed The Middle Place, After Akhmatova and If We Were Birds.

“One is a world of sharp, harsh, cold, clinical images. The other, more natural, contains a flowing river, incense and spirituality. But when you go deeper into the play’s mystery, the two worlds are intrinsically connected.

“The images were so clear to me when I first read the play that I had to work on it. I knew implicitly that they were deeply authentic.”

Sinha says she wrote the script as a score, “and from the start intended on collaborating with other artists.”

They include her brother, Debashis, who created the sound design, and her mother, Rubena, a dancer and storyteller who provided choreography for a classic Indian tale.

Both writer and director agree on the mythic nature of the story and that anyone can relate to its ideas.

“It’s a coming-of-age tale, a quest in which what the Girl experiences in the labyrinth is different from what she expects,” offers Dilworth.

“And beyond that, the consequences of pain and loss have to be part of any human equation,” continues Sinha. “One doesn’t live despite them but with them.”

Additional Interview Clip

Alan Dilworth on questions of justice and the possibility of change:

Download associated audio clip.

jonkap@nowtoronto.com

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