Vancouver, 1948: wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy and gluttony all take a turn in a time of fear, paranoia, rage and desperation. The police make pacts with the gangsters who run the whorehouses and gambling joints as Vancouver reinvents itself in the aftermath of the Second World War.

A stranger arrives to settle an account of her own, struggling through a fog of psychosis, pills and booze to track her target from one end of the city to the other and leaving a trail of murder in her wake. Is she victim or perpetrator, seduced or seductress? Has she arrived to flee her past or seek revenge? What she finds is a treacherous, shape-shifting landscape of police and pimps, soldiers and refugees, damaged goods and ghostly lovers – all scrambling to find their feet in the shifting sands.

A cinematic stage production from world-renowned visual artist and filmmaker Stan Douglas and acclaimed screenwriter and producer Chris Haddock, Helen Lawrence is inspired by postwar film noir and intertwines theatre, visual art, live-action filming and computer-generated historical backgrounds for a groundbreaking multimedia thriller.

A co-production by Canadian Stage, Arts Club Theatre Company, Vancouver, The Banff Centre, Stan Douglas Inc, Festival TransAmériques and Canada's National Arts Centre

Please note this performance contains strong language that may not be suitable for children and gun shots