The 5th Station - Simon of Cyrene carries the cross

It takes a lot of people to tell a story in the theatrical setting. Directors, actors, and stage management are on the front lines. But they are not alone in setting the stage.

SUE LEPAGE has designed the sets and costumes . She accomplished the great feat of providing a playing space that incorporates the natural architecture of the Factory theatre and then expanded upon it. She provides enough elements to suggest our different locations without being so literal that it limits the actors. We are in a village set in the rural Quebec of 1918, yet we're also always in a slightly distorted version of nature itself.

The job of taking all this one step further into the realm of Michel Marc Bouchard's heightened and fantastical world falls to the lighting designer BETH KATES. Blending the real and the surreal makes for beatiful images. A creepy forest setting on a fall evening comes to life, as does the altar and sanctuary of a medieval church.

The final element of design is provided by Reza Jacobs. In a play filled with images and metaphors of nature Reza decided to keep the sound itself all natural in its root. Winds, coughing, breathing, and supernatural drones were all created using the actors voices as a base. Taking influences from renaissance music, liturgical music, and folk songs of turn of the century Quebec he also created original music to help establish the world and tone of our story and to heighten our reality even further.

The Madonna Painter is very fortunate to have the synthesis of all these creative juices flowing through its veins.