Cast members of the theatre production Us and Them Photo by David Cooper, courtesy of The Cultch

The fundamental question explored in the play Us and Them by co-directors David Diamond and Kevin Finnan, is “if it’s only us here, who are the ‘they’ we are creating?”

Us and Them, showing at The Cultch (Historic Theatre) on Venables Street, is a production which merges traditional and formum theatre.

Part of a two-year project of Headlines Theatre, the complex, central concepts of the production, emerged from 23 public inquiries or dialogues, including international ones held in Bethlehem, Jenin, Bir Zeit, and Ramallah.

The production consists of two parts: a play and an interactive theatre session.

Taking place during a riot, the play interweaves the stories of six characters that come from diverse cultures and backgrounds. Regardless of their differences, all of them experience the common struggle of stereotyping, discontentment, and animosity.

“Ultimately, what we’re trying to do, is create a theatrical journey that deals with the small human moments in which people put up walls, [both] inside themselves, and in between each other,” says David Diamond, founding member and artistic director of Headlines Theatre.

He adds that it’s these very walls “that then lead to the alienation that separates [people from one another].”

The groundwork for the play emerged out of a week-long workshop with 20 core participants, including the six cast members. Without putting pen to paper, the cast went straight to rehearsal and the script was developed through an improvisational process.

Cast member Iris Paradela, says that while she and the other cast members are not playing themselves, they are very close to the characters that they have created.

“It’s like we’re sitting beside the characters,” says Paradela. “It was a very organic process.”

Pardela sees many parallels between herself and her character Ligaya, a Filipino immigrant whose name, ironically, means happiness.

“Ligaya feels this lack of connection, this lack of being part of a community,” says Paradela.  “She is struggling with that, feeling isolated, and jumps at every opportunity [to connect] with someone else.”

The second part of the evening is an experiment with forum theatre – an interactive session in which the audience can stop the action, enter a scene of conflict or struggle, and guide the characters to find a solution.

Stephanie Bogaert, who lives in Vancouver, has attended past works by Headlines Theatre. She says that this kind of theatre is atypical because audiences are able to voluntarily participate in role playing, or take part in the discussions happening in the scenes.

“It’s exciting… frustrating and thought-provoking,” says Bogaert.

For Paradela, involvement in the production has already started the process to battle labels.

As an immigrant from the Philippines, she encountered the stereotypical perception that she immigrated to Canada only because of financial necessity.

“Sure, there’s that element of wanting to make the life of my family better,” she says. “But there’s also that sense of adventure… like you want to know what’s on the other side of the world.”

The concepts explored through the production – the struggle against stereotyping, discontentment, and animosity – ring truer in our current environment. While some may argue that the general unrest in the Middle East has always been present, we see that unrest revealed closer to home now, with the sentiments behind Occupy Wall Street filtering in across the continent.

“That discontented energy is manifesting now in many parts of the world,” says Diamond. “ [It] can manifest in different ways depending on where you are. In a number of ways, the invitation will be to build bridges… and to try to engage in real, deep and authentic dialogue.”

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Us and Them opens Oct. 21 and runs through to Nov. 12 at The Cultch. For more information, visit www.headlinestheatre.com.