Card games consist of a series of rules, symbols, signs, mathematical or numerological structures, mythologies, and, above all, characters. By combining and ordering them, you can create as many stories as there are possible arrangements. At least that’s the intuition guiding Robert Lepage and his collaborators on the project called Playing Cards. With such a range of possibilities, the creators imposed the structure of a deck of cards on the project. It will consist of four parts: SPADES, HEARTS, DIAMONDS, and CLUBS, each exploring a universe inspired by the asset the suit represents.

Research into the origin of cards invariably leads back to the Arab world. The tetralogy’s four parts, each independent and yet interrelated with the others, will make up a cosmos dealing with our past, present and future relationships, our exchanges, and sometimes too, our culture shocks when encountering the Arab way of life.

Playing Cards : HEARTS

In Playing Cards: HEARTS, a web is woven around three countries and across five generations, linking Algeria, France and Quebec, from the 1848 Spring of Nations to the Arab Spring.

In 2011, Chaffik, a young North African taxi driver in Quebec City, delves into his genealogical past to untangle questionable events linked to the disappearance of his grandfather and the origins of his family.

In 1856, renowned French magician Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin is sent to Algeria by the French government to challenge the spiritual and magical powers of the marabouts.

Chaffik and Robert-Houdin are connected by a familial, political and artistic network naturally woven by history and stories, along with questions of faith, beliefs, magic and performances. These themes fit together like clockwork.

HEARTS tells the story of colonial Algeria, a confluence of foreign politics and French inventions in magic, science and photography. These innovations and ideas incubate in the alleys of Algiers and become essential tools of the Algerian resistance.

HEARTS also explores 19th-century France, particularly French magicians (Robert-Houdin, Méliès) and their relationship to science, cinema and Spiritualist séances—very popular in French intellectual and artistic circles of the era.

Among bureaucratic archivists in Paris, Chaffik uncovers the story of a forger from the resistance and traces links between France and its former colony.

In Quebec, we meet Chaffik, his immigrant family and his girlfriend Judith, who is a lecturer in cinema theory at Laval University and the daughter of a diplomat. She is the centre point of all these rotating gears.

With a 360° scene design, the set of HEARTS becomes everything from a magic lantern with fantastic stories and cinematic images, to a hot spot on the brink of exploding from a complex chain of relationships.

Text: Louis Fortier, Reda Guerinik, Ben Grant, Catherine Hughes, Kathryn Hunter, Robert Lepage, Marcello Magni, Olivier Normand
Director: Robert Lepage
Dramaturg: Peder Bjurman
Assistant Director: Sybille Wilson
With: Louis Fortier, Kathryn Hunter, Reda Guerinik, Ben Grant, Catherine Hughes, Marcello Magni, Olivier Normand
Original music & sound design: Jean-Sébastien Côté
Assisted by: Donato Wharton
Set Design: Michel Gauthier, Jean Hazel
Lighting Design: Louis-Xavier Gagnon-Lebrun
Assisted by: Renaud Pettigrew
Costume Design: Sébastien Dionne
Assisted by: Gabriellle Arseneault
Props Design: Virginie Leclerc
Assisted by: Ariane Sauvé, Jeanne Lapierre
Images Design: David Leclerc
Wigs: Rachel Tremblay

Production: Ex Machina
Initiated by the 360° Network
Co-production: Ruhrtriennale; La Comète - Scène nationale de Châlons-en-Champagne °; Cirque Jules Verne & Maison de la Culture - Scène nationale d'Amiens °; Østre Gasværk Teater, Copenhague °; Roundhouse, Londres °; Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg

° Members of the 360° Network, an international group of round artistic venues.

Producer for Ex Machina Michel Bernatchez
Associate Production - Europe and Japan Richard Castelli - Epidemic
Associate Production - The Americas, Asia (except Japan), Australia, NZ Menno Plukker Theatre Agent

Ex Machina is funded by the Canada Council for the Arts, Quebec's Arts and Literature Council
and the City of Quebec.