How do you construct a story—maybe even a reality? A hybrid of presentation, theatre and film, Le désert mauve tackles Nicole Brossard’s genre-defying novel of the same name. Within the blinding void, the thoughts of a teenager on the run generate a series of images that accumulate like so many distressing mirages.

Fifteen-year-old Mélanie is driving through the Arizona desert, circling the motel where she lives with her mother. Thirsty for the absolute, beset by existential questions, the young woman is desperate to escape boredom and discover who she is in a world gradually losing its humanity.

Nicole Brossard writes about adolescence in all its defiance and intensity, and has published some 40 titles since 1965. An award-winning poet, she periodically returns to the novel form to gauge its relationship to the real. The stage direction and visual elements of this adaptation of her iconic novel are the result of an artistic encounter between the author and Simon Dumas of Rhizome, which produces multidisciplinary projects based on literary works.

As they talk about creative issues and unfold the story of Le désert mauve, images pile up on the walls and furniture of what looks like a motel room. Within the theatre space, new layers of fiction are taking shape.