Unidentified Human Remains & The True Nature of Love

Crow's Theatre at the Poor Alex

Toronto, Ontario, CAN  1993

Brad Fraser’s Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love was first developed with Crow’s Theatre at the Poor Alex Theatre, Toronto during 1993. The play involved a dramatic narrative based on glimmerings of human warmth arising in a range of alienated characters. Director Jim Millan produced the script as a chamber work, employing a range of visual treatments and unscripted movements to amplify the text. The stage set for Unidentified Human Remains was developed as a series of strained tectonic plates making hollow, uncertain ground. Rifts in these fragile shells were employed for dramatic staging of exchanges between characters. The white glazed surfaces of the set were developed to act as resonant projection vehicles for widely varying scattered pools of light.

Following the first production, a new design was developed for an extended engagement at the Theatre Passe Muraille, Toronto. In subsequent years a new design was refined for the National Arts Centre, Ottawa, followed by another set undertaken as a touring vehicle for a range of North American venues.