Six stands, no set, no stage.
It’s October 15, 2026. The audience for The Cull (by Michele Riml and Michael St. John Smith) sits just feet from the actors. There is barely room to build the fourth wall – and little reason to: the audience’s response is precisely what the creators are here for.
“Great theatre begins with great writing” is the motto of The Vault Creation Lab. Founded by Diana Bentley in 2025 at Toronto’s Coal Mine Theatre, it helps Canadian playwrights develop scripts through public readings, where an audience’s laughter, silence, and questions can help shape the work. The Cull, first staged in Vancouver in 2023 as a two-act play, has arrived at The Vault as a new one-act version, still in development.
Here’s the setup: Paul (Christopher Morris) and Nicole (Tara Nicodemo) host a dinner in southeastern British Columbia to celebrate the 25th wedding anniversary of their longtime friends Emily (Jenny Young) and Lewis(Craig Lauzon). The hosts’ wealth is immediately apparent from the enormous house, a chandelier Nicole proudly admires, and the elegant tableware and bamboo napkins. Paul earns enough for Nicole to devote herself to the children, shopping, and hobbies. Emily and Lewis, meanwhile, barely scraped together last month’s rent, in part because, as a skilled carpenter, Lewis refuses to compromise his artistic standards for steady work. Arriving a little late is the wealthiest of the three couples: a high school friend Lynne (Christina Song), and her husband John (Tom Barnett). They are turning Lynne’s family orchard into an upscale resort.
The production uses no props – or almost none. A reader supplies selected verbal stage directions: Paul brings out organic, grass-fed steaks; wine is poured; a cake is cut and tasted. Bamboo napkins and organic asparagus get their share of attention, too. Under Peter Pasyk’s deft direction, the actors suggest it all with just a few key gestures, leaving us to imagine the rest. The sole physical prop is a cheque for $25,000, John’s anniversary gift to Emily and Lewis. With its arrival, the evening takes a sharp turn towards an examination of wealth gaps and clashing values among these middle-aged friends, who years ago started out on similar footing.
With words and story taking centre stage in the creation lab, the interplay between the actors is fascinating to watch. Just picture it: scripts in hand, they can move only forward to their individual lecterns, or back to the wall when their characters are out of the scene. With so little room to move, the actors must rely on their voices, facial expressions, and exchanged glances. The slightest shift in tone, a lingering pause, a flicker of a reaction to someone else’s line – all become impossible to miss.
The ensemble is superb, with each actor creating a fully rounded character within the pared-back format. Paul keeps the jokes coming as the tensions rise. Nicole wants to appear ethical and environmentally conscious, yet longs to add a swimming pool to her enormous home, offering the rather flimsy excuse that it’s for the children. Emily is tired of being poor but struggles to accept the gift, and we feel the hesitation. Lewis, too, is tempted, but his ethical principles stand in the way. Meanwhile, John shifts from calculating businessman to blunt truth-teller. And Lynne’s look when the cheque appears is simply priceless: a combination of surprise, confusion, and disapproval. Clearly, she knew nothing about it – though out loud, she insists she knew all along.
Even this brief sketch of the characters just hints at the play’s lofty ambitions, which leave it feeling somewhat overloaded. Capitalism, consumerism, inequality, class divisions, environmental concerns, and moral compromise: The Cull tackles this comprehensive catalogue of contemporary Western preoccupations. Ultimately, though, both the plot and the clash of ideas grow beyond what the play has room to explore convincingly.
The setup of couples gathering under one roof as tensions surface also follows a familiar theatrical trajectory, making a fresh angle essential. Yet some twists feel predictable, especially to audiences familiar with Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Yasmina Reza’s God of Carnage, J. B. Priestley’s An Inspector Calls, or Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard. Moreover, the wolf cull of the title suggests a clear enough metaphor for human relationships, but it is unclear to me how it maps onto the relationships in this play.
Still, the heartfelt applause at the end of the performance speaks eloquently: this performance draws the audience in much as a fully staged production would, with the ensemble filling this nearly empty space with life and tension. Some of the rough edges may stem from refining two acts into one – and The Vault Creation Lab is giving the play room to find its new shape.
That’s the real thrill of the lab: it’s an experiment whose last word has yet to be written.
The Vault’s Public Lab Series returns in January with a different play. Tickets are available at thevaultcreationlab.ca.
© Natalia Mukhina, Sesaya Arts Magazine 2026
