A new creation by Jonathon Young

Produced by Electric Company Theatre

Co-Presented by SFU Woodward's Cultural Programs and presented with PuSh International Performing Arts Festival

World Premiere: Jan 30-Feb 4, 2023 - Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre, MST Territories/Vancouver

Caught between the eternal forces of development and destruction, four spokespeople are on a quest to say what can’t be said.

In Jonathon Young’s newest play, a mysterious campaign is promoting a development on the shores of an ocean sound, and a group of antisocial misfits have signed on as spokespeople. What first appears to be a mundane, straightforward job, becomes a kind of language experiment, a conjuring act.

Loosely inspired by Goethe’s Faust, An Undeveloped Sound is about the desire for certainty in an ever-changing world, and the wager made between development and destruction.

In this new vision of the classic fable, the verbal impulse – language itself – becomes the driving, Faustian force: the unending need to be heard and understood, the quest to say what must be said. If they can sustain this quest, refusing to be satisfied that all is said and done, they’ll win their place in the development.

The world of An Undeveloped Sound offers a less traditional image of Faust. Jonathon envisions an empty lot for a new development; a contemporary showroom; a group of very ordinary, unaccomplished Fausts as spokespeople. They grapple with the ageless and essential Faustian questions: Where do I find the strength to continue to learn, to keep up with constant change?  How do I live fully? What will sustain my interest in life?