This is the year’s most gutsy and original new play. The surrealist drama ‘Erased’ is a chilling allegory of late-stage capitalism

Toronto audiences tired of the regurgitated fare that’s being presented on so many of our stages this year should immediately see “Erased,” Coleen Shirin MacPherson’s stunning play now running at Theatre Passe Muraille.
It’s the most gutsy and original new show to premiere in Toronto this season. And its 90 minutes of drama can help renew our belief in theatre’s promise to challenge, provoke and innovate. 
Fusing elements of absurdism, surrealism and physical theatre, “Erased” pushes the boundaries of storytelling yet remains laser-focused on its purpose: to offer a chilling allegory and indictment of late-stage capitalism that feels ripe for our present moment. 
As the lights rise on Nick Blais’s angular, industrial set, we meet three women working behind a conveyor belt on a factory floor. They’re making greeting cards, whose designs and texts are generated by an AI machine. 
But there’s something uncanny about this image. Margie (a terrific and terrifying Nancy McAlear), the eldest and most senior worker, perched on a high chair, wears an unnaturally cheery grin. She continually tells the two younger women beside her to smile. 
Grace (Sochi Fried), however, can’t muster the strength to wipe away her blank expression, while the new recruit René (Kat Khan) is more confused than anything, as she becomes another cog in the machine. 
MacPherson’s dialogue initially feels insignificant. Then it builds, repeating scattered phrases and motifs, as the mood turns into something far darker and sinister, oppressively choking the characters onstage. 
The factory, it turns out, is more like an Orwellian dystopia. The three woman work under the surveillance of their exploiters, the “Uppers,” who track their every move. We never see them, though their presence weighs heavy. 
MacPherson, who also directs, constructs this eerie, postapocalyptic society with frightening depth and precision. Amy Nostbakken’s compositions, along with Richard Feren’s sound designs, provide an acoustic landscape that cradles the audience. Blais’s lighting designs can be brutally blinding one moment before retreating toward a softer palette. 
But the genius of this world premiere production lies in how MacPherson grounds her story. Even as the play becomes increasingly nonnaturalistic, diving deeper into its hellish world, there remains a tether to our society, offering a stark warning about our perverse addiction to consumption, production and exploitation. 
There’s also much humorous irony to the fact that Margie, Grace and René create greeting cards. “You’re doing meaningful work René,” Margie tells her younger counterpart. “Greeting cards bring joy to the masses. That’s what matters.”
But the insincerity with which Margie delivers that line only matches the insincerity of those mass-produced cards themselves. The woman knows she’s spinning a web of lies. 
These fibs, though, are used to cope with their existence. Escape, for the workers, feels futile. Labourers who’ve tried rebelling have been dragged away from their stations, never to be seen again.
Their spirits haunt the factory. As portrayed by seven, nonspeaking performers, these ghosts creep in and out of the shadows. (The immersive choreography by Alix Sideris is truly beguiling.) 
But that doesn’t stop some from dreaming of a better future. A fourth worker, young Oliver (Rose Tuong), takes these spirits to be a sign of hope. Soon, the others are also being haunted by visions and hallucinations. 
“Erased” all converges in a climactic ending that is dense, cryptic and worthy of multiple viewings — if nothing else, to unpack its layers of meaning. But one thing is certain: this exceptional new play is one that will not be erased from my memory any time soon.