In Frida Kahlo’s eye is a disturbing darkness. In her mouth, an angry scream that has resounded throughout Mexico since the first massacres committed by the Conquistadors. In her veins, red blood, the source for all the colors that fill her works, where her innermost secrets come alive.

Frida Kahlo is a woman living in pain since youth, since a terrible tramway accident broke her spine. Her suffering, however, acts as the source of a singular outlook on art and on the mythology of her country, as seen through the history of the Aztec people. Pain is also part of her tormented love life as the wife of the great muralist painter Diego Rivera – and mistress of Leon Trotsky.

La Casa Azul shows Frida Kahlo in the last moments of her life, as she engages in a dialogue with Death, hours before the inauguration of her first and only exhibit in Mexico City. As the conversation ensues, we are witness to Frida’s complex desire for recognition, her immeasurable need for love, and the constant struggle between her desire for death and her lust for life.

Seasoned stage actress Sophie Faucher has been fascinated for many years by the art and life of Frida Kahlo. La Casa Azul is her first stage play. Director Robert Lepage has been associated with the project from the beginning, and he brings additional layers of meaning to Faucher’s text with the inventive staging and visual elegance for which he is renowned. Video plays an important part in the production, sometimes as a narrative tool, sometimes as an element of stage design, while the frequent transformations of accessories, music, lighting and atmospheres also play an integral part in the telling of this unique story.

Text: Sophie Faucher
Inspired by: the writings of Frida Kahlo
Directed by: Robert Lepage

Assistant to Robert Lepage: Lynda Beaulieu

With:
Sophie Faucher
Lise Roy
Patric Saucier

Assistant to the director: Normand Poirier
Set designer :Carl Fillion
Lighting designer: Sonoyo Nishikawa
Costume designer: Véronique Borboën
Prop designer: Sylvie Courbron
Make up and hair designer: Angelo Barsetti
Wigs: Rachel Tremblay
Assisted by: Claude Trudel
Images produced by: Jacques Collin
Assisted by: Lionel Arnould

Production Ex Machina
Co-production: Cabildo Insular de Tenerife; Pilar de Yzaguirre - Ysarca Art Promotions, Madrid; Théâtre de Quat'Sous, Montréal; Wiener Festwochen, Wien

Associate producer, Europe, Japan: Richard Castelli
Associate producer, United Kingdom: Michael Morris
Associate producer, Canada, United States, Australia, NZ: Menno Plukker
Producer for Ex Machina: Michel Bernatchez

Ex Machina is funded by the Canada Council for the Arts, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Quebec's Arts and Literature Council, the Ministry for Culture and Communication, the Quebec Foundation for the Stabilisation and Consolidation of Arts and Culture and the City of Quebec.