Realities revealed by Jason Gondziola from the Hour

Thanks to Jason too for writing an article on us!! This blog is starting to be a 'virtual press clippings collection';) But the more we've got, the more happy we are. Good job people!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Truth and Treason delves deep into the Iraq war and debates its cultural, political and personal legacy

Motion is the key to emotion. So says Arianna Bardesono, director of Truth and Treason, a new play produced by Teesri Duniya Theatre about the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq.

"Any play can be dealt with in such a way that it's not just an intellectual reproduction of the [written] work," says Bardesono. "If something is going on in the bodies of the actors on stage, we go through the same motions internally in a microscopic way. It's how the audience connects with the performers."

Born and raised in Italy, Bardesono came to Montreal unintentionally, via a puppeteering gig in the Maritimes four years ago. She sees her direction of Truth and Treason as a cultural crossroads, with European direction and movement applied to a very North American script, where character and plot typically play a stronger role.

The play, written by Rahul Varma, begins with the unintentional shooting of a young girl by American soldiers, an act that throws the story's characters into the international spotlight. The ensemble of performers consists of 11 mostly fictional characters, but audiences will likely recognize ex-vice president Dick Cheney as well as General Tommy Franks, Condoleezza Rice and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

The story is told through 30 short scenes, each taking place on a sparse stage where military tarps serve as a changing and evolving set that alternately conceals and reveals throughout the performance - a symbol of our own knowledge of what goes on in the occupied
country.

Bardesono says that the play offers an important critique of the aftermath of the Iraq invasion and reminds audiences that the "war on terror" did not end with the Bush regime.

"Things haven't really changed," says Bardesono. "In his speeches, Obama uses almost the same language as Bush when talking about terror."

Source: the Hour