Featuring two performance pieces written by Eugène Ionesco (The Leader - directed by David Mesiha and Frenzy for Two - directed by Richard Wolfe), alongside the debut photo/audio installation Lost Hands by Tim Carlson/feral.i.d, and a bar to help process whatever is happening around you.

Part double-bill, part art party, Ionesco's Cabaret is a playful encounter between friends and foes, entangling audience members in love-collisions, mass persuasion, and social unravelling.

Come for the theatre. Stay for the existential dread.

Ionesco's Cabaret will play at Progress Lab 1422 (1422 William St, Vancouver, BC, BC V5L 2P7)

THE LEADER (1953)

The Leader is coming. The crowd cheers. Everyone loves him. No one knows why…
Sharp, chaotic, and unsettlingly familiar, this dark satire is a portrait of mass hysteria, adoration and blind devotion. Witness how easily power and persuasion takes hold—and how seductive it can feel as it happens.

FRENZY FOR TWO (1962)

A tortoise and a snail. Different or the same?
A high-stakes collision of love, ego, and survival. As the world fractures outside, a couple clings to conflict instead of connection, picking fights over nothing while chaos creeps closer and closer to their door. A front-row seat to a relationship unravelling while everything else burns.

LOST HANDS (Installation)

Lost Hands is an audio/visual novel by Tim Carlson/feral.i.d. Echoing themes in Frenzy for Two and The Leader, absurdly worrisome narratives play on multi-channel speakers while a slideshow of absurdly worrisome found objects provide evocative documentation of said worrisome absurdity. Created with literary/philosophical support from Richard Wolfe.

Cast & Creative Team

David Mesiha - Director (The Leader), Producer
Richard Wolfe - Director (Frenzy for Two)
Tim Carlson/feral.i.d - Creator (Lost Hands)

Starring

Nyiri Karakas
Khoa Mai
Sophia Radford
Christiaan Westerveld

Kayleigh Sandomirsky - Stage Manager
Brianna Bernard - Technical Director / Lx Assistant
Atryom "Arty" Urdabayev - Projection Design
Parjad Sharifi - Lighting Design
Emily Friesen - Costume Design
Claine Lamb - Sound Design
Jergus Oprsal - Scenography‍

Ionesco's Cabaret is Produced by Theatre Conspiracy, in Association with Pi Theatre, Presented by Rumble Theatre.