Toronto’s Factory Theatre presents an eclectic mixture of theatre in its space this 2025 theatre year.

Running from November 27 to December 7 is Public Consumption, A Lester Trips (Theatre) production created by Lauren Gillis and Alaine Hutton. The upcoming show is billed as ‘a new body-horror speculative fiction from the creators of Honey, I’m Home. ‘ I didn’t see that show, so I have no comparison.

Lauren and Alaine took a few moments to answer some questions for their profile.

The two are University of Toronto graduates from what was then known as the University College Drama Program. It is now The Centre for Drama, Theatre, and Performance Studies. Alaine also studied at Ecole Jacques Lecoq. They both knew they needed to keep expanding and deepening their performance skills after their formal training, which they have been doing the past 10-15 years through continued training in their mentors’ disciplines: Fides Krucker’s Emotionally Integrated Voice and Denise Fujiwara’s Butoh-Based Embodiment.

Their written answers show me they’re doubly witty and entertaining.  Hopefully, we’ll get a chance to say hello after the performance.

You’ll see why I’m calling them witty and entertaining shortly.

When I inquired how they’re both feeling about the Toronto theatre industry at this time, their response:

“[We’re] not sure there is, or has ever been in [our] lifetime, any “viability” going on over here. When we graduated and started trying to get grants and make our own work, it was pretty much understood that if there is anything, absolutely anything, that you can do instead of theatre performance, then do that. A sticky note from our movement teacher tacked onto a sleepless dramaturge’s computer in sharpie says, “YOU ARE NOT HERE TO FIND WORK, YOU ARE HERE TO MAKE WORK.”

That is exactly what Lauren and Alaine are doing. Making their own work. As artists, they realize there is no stability, no guarantee, and no reward besides the process of making the work:

“If you are not absolutely in love with making stuff like this, and part of you doesn’t also, in a sick way, love the chaos and fragility of the whole enterprise, it’s going to be nightmare.”

The two keep coming back to performing because they really like this nightmare.

The theatre industry for them is not an industry:

“It’s a network of passionate, kind people trading goods and services between each other, people who can’t stop doing this exciting thing that makes no money and that, despite thousands of years of decline, just will not die.”

Public Consumption features a famous actor, cancelled for his cannibal texts and convicted of heinous assaults. He is sentenced to read hundreds of thousands of pages of erotic fan fiction with the aim of training a large AI to identify obscenity that violates a social media platform’s standards.  That’s the nutshell; there’s more to discover in the play. The final tidbit: “In this world of Public Consumption, an augmented-reality auto sadistic trip through content moderation hell is all in a day’s work.”

Wow!

What are they hoping audiences will take away from the show?

“[We] want people to know walking in that Public Consumption is as much a comedy as it is speculative horror, and …would encourage people who don’t normally enjoy the violence and grossness of body horror to give this a try.  (But body horror fans, do still come- cause it’s still gross.) As much as [the play] is about the pitfalls of content moderation, fame, and untenable digital work taking a toll on the human body, it’s also about pleasure and creativity. It’s about the amoral glory of the internet, and the deepest, most delicious desires of the people as they peer out of the darkness at a famous man who has done a bad thing and become defined by it.”

The hope is that the production will boost the chaotic element of the world in which we all live.  On a side note, the girls did say they were kidding about that last statement, as they state a hard fact: “The chaos rages on with or without this play.”

Any plans to tour the show?

And again, the ladies’ dark sense of humour made laugh when they answered this question:

“That would be cool to tour. If you know anyone that wants a show about a generative AI and a convicted sex offender annoying each other into oblivion in virtual reality, send their contact our way.”

What’s next for Lauren and Alaine once Public Consumption concludes its Toronto run?

They sleep for five days and immediately keep writing the third part of the trilogy: Provisions.

A synopsis of that story: It deals with a paramedic who gets tasked with the crap job of visiting a failed human space settlement and trying to get the erotic-VR-addicted masses to return home to a rather unappealing burning Earth. Couple that with a secret VR love affair and a really bad body horror problem to keep things emotionally and metaphysically spicy.

The ladies are also working on an animated project, DAYGAMERS, that follows a trio of pick-up artists through the vitriol of the 2010s internet and a documentary filmmaker’s attempt to somehow make her doc about them not offensive. It doesn’t work- she gets doxed to hell. And also- everyone is earwigs. 

 Concluding words about Public Consumption”

“Whether you find thrills, reflection, or perhaps just a wry laugh to yourself in the darkness, may you find a brief moment of respite in this play because its contents are not yet reality this week.”

Public Consumption runs November 27 – December 7 at Toronto’s Factory Theatre. For tickets and other information, visit: factorytheatre.ca.