Ellie Moon and Craig Lauzon in “Truck”, Photo by Eden Graham
Writer-director Graham Isador’s Truck, presented by Pressgang and Factory Theatre, propels us deep into the next decade. This fiction isn’t even speculative; no, the mechanisms of our replacement in the grand machinery of corporate progress (let’s just call it greed) are already in place. Many folks, if not already scrambling for purchase in a new world, have at least noticed the cracks in the foundation of their livelihoods.
Isador has stated that this story isn’t about AI, though it is very much informed by the creeping presence of ChatGPT and its ilk in the creative writing sphere. Here, he introduces us to Alan Moxley (Craig Lauzon), a trucker and reluctant activist, facing the awful reality that he’s about to loose his job to drones. His denim, Blundstones and plaid flannel mark him as a rugged, salt of the earth type; he seems especially incongruous and vulnerable in his scenes with Jamie Baker (Ellie Moon), a tech-firm marketing lackey in a power suit.
The framing circumstances here are stalled contract negotiations and a transport strike. Jamie isn’t actually interested in satisfying the needs of the truckers that Alan—and friend Nathan Dalton (Tim Walker)—represent. She makes it very clear they don’t ultimately matter; thanks to tech giant Edison (unabashedly on the nose!), those trucks are gonna be driving themselves. What she’s offering Alan is the chance to sell his soul for a PR scheme—to be a temporary, performative man of the people mouthpiece for Edison.
It’s easy to sympathize with Alan; Lauzon is very endearing as he wrestles with betraying the cause for immediate financial gain. He and Walker have compelling chemistry as they wrangle over their integrity and test the bounds of their friendship. Walker convinces us that Nathan’s got the charisma necessary to galvanize a crowd. Lauzon’s Alan, though not as articulate or confident, is deeply considerate of his conflicting responsibilities to an industry and his family—we can see the weight of it in his posture. As Jamie, Moon has to maintain a delicate balance—a chilling, inhuman corporate agent that we must also find kinda funny. She nails the aggressive posturing of a people handler, eschewing any guise of empathy with a breezy efficiency. Her calisthenics routine set to a regurgitation of corporate rhetoric is pretty iconic.
Though he has indicated there is a higher-tech, slicker version of this somewhere in his mind’s eye, due to limited resources, Isador’s production required a bare-bones approach. His writing is strong enough to work as an audio drama, so the minimalism doesn’t diminish its impact. The single chrome balloon is a depressing touch. The soundscape is performed live on-stage by sound designer Ron Kelly, featuring a motif of radio chatter that grounds this in a world of conflicting interests and the resulting cacophony. In the only noticeably meta-theatrical nod, Moon’s Jamie often glances over expectantly at this sound man in the corner, as if he’s the real audience for her corporate dance.
All of this culminates in that speech Alan’s been asked to recite. We are forced to endure, in real time, this poor man’s struggle to rise to the occasion—to overcome his timidity, honour the transactional expectations, give something of himself to the corporate drivel and all the while realizing his world is ending. In a painfully abject spectacle, the speech degenerates into a desperate plea.
I expected this to be angrier. Perhaps some actual violence might be needed to fully examine the dynamics here. Don’t get me wrong, there is an undeniable rage festering beneath it all, but the distinctive ethos of Truck is an acute sadness. All art is an expression of hope, I guess, so it behooves us to contextualize the grim truths regarding our current momentum and trajectory.
Truck
running March 26 to April 6, 2025
Factory Theatre, Studio (125 Bathurst Street)
running time: 60 minutes (no intermission)
Craig Lauzon and Tim Walker in “Truck”, Photo by Eden Graham