Request Programme, originally written in German in the 1970s by Franz Xaver Kroetz and translated by Katharena Hehn, takes its title from a radio show, the kind of show where a host responds to song requests sent in by audience members by playing the songs, but also by responding in compassionate, almost-intimate ways to the glimpses of regret, sadness, hope, loneliness, and humour she gets in the letters and texts. It felt very familiar, like shows I’ve heard on CBC radio, or European selections played overnight on NPR on long drives, or Join the Conversation on Now! radio. It’s a structure that supports a different show every night.

I think that Request Programme, the current Northern Light Theatre production directed by Trevor Schmidt, must have a similar blend of an underpinning routine with specifics that vary each night, making it worth watching more than once during the run. I’ve only seen it once so far – I saw it on opening night, with Vanessa Sabourin as the sole performer on stage. Each performance has a different on-stage performer, all local female actors who have worked on previous Northern Light Theatre productions. The voice of the radio host is also significant to the story but isn’t explicitly identified in the credits – I’m pretty sure the voice I heard, warm and grounded, was Nadien Chu. And the playlist of artists in the radio programme is ten Edmonton singer/songwriters, all women, each with one recent original song.

The character on stage does not speak at all. But as in many effective movement-based performances, I could tell enough about what was going on and why that I was engaged in the character’s journey, and cared about their outcome. I’ve had similar experiences with wordless or near-wordless clown and physical theatre (such as 7 Ways to Die: A Love Story, by Keltie Brown Forsyth and Alex Forsyth, or Lost ‘n’ Lost Department, by Elaine Weryshko, Jed Tomlinson, and Kristin Eveleigh, with dance (Black Hair, Blue Eyes, a piece at Expanse Festival 2014 with Ainsley Hillyard, Mat Simpson, and Liam Cody, many of the Ballet Edmonton works, or Betroffenheit (Jonathon Young, Crystal Pite), and with theatre (Small Mouth Sounds, the Jim Guedo-directed play about people at a silent yoga retreat).

A woman comes home late in the evening to a small tidy apartment in a city. The apartment reminded me of one of the self-contained apartment setups in the IKEA store – set design by Schmidt – full enough that it felt like she actually lived there, but without much that was revealing or personal. Not enough kitchen for someone who enjoys cooking or eating, no photos except for possibly one on the kitchen table that we couldn’t see, the small clothes-rack of someone who has recently started over. I thought she was probably coming home from work, because she was wearing dress shoes and clothes more formal than the ones she changes into, but her totebag also contained a few basic groceries. As she passes the evening, I had the sense that she was struggling to settle to anything – whether eating the sandwich she makes, finding something to watch on TV, making tea, reading a book, or doing a jigsaw puzzle. She didn’t seem to have any inclination to human contact either – no letters in the mail, no landline or cell phone, no computer, no waving out the window. She was going through the motions.

But she turns on the radio just in time for the nightly Request Programme, and listens to the whole thing. I could see that some of the host’s commentary and request letters landed with her, and some of the song lyrics too. In “In a While” Cayley Thomas sang of losing a brother before his 25th birthday. Lindsay Walker’s “I Won’t Give Up” is an fiercely inspiring anthem to carrying on, and Alex Dawkins’ “Pretty Girls” evoked passion and regret. A couple of times I wondered if the listener whose note the host was responding to might have been Sabourin’s character – but I thought probably she wasn’t sufficiently engaged with even that version of community. The people who were writing to the radio programme wanted someone to hear their pain, their loss, their fears – and I don’t think the woman on stage saw any point in that.

I didn’t know the details of why Sabourin’s character was so alone, so restless, so numb. But I worried about her, to the point of barely breathing near the end of the show. I grasped at hints of the character planning for the next day such as putting the leftovers in the fridge and rinsing out her knee-high stockings, but maybe those were autopilot actions. The ending did not feel inevitable but it was not a shock and was not overdrawn. I want to see another actor’s version. I don’t know how detailed the play script is – how much of a movement score or blocking is provided – but I understand that each performer had limited preparation time and possibly did not get to hear the radio show music and narration beforehand. Request Programme is fascinating and disturbing, an evocation of the spectrum between alone and lonely, between self-disciplined routine and dissociation, between surviving and … not.

Request Programme continues at the Fringe Arts Barns Studio until May 16th. Tickets are here.