When Alyssa Bunce finished her new show, she knew it wasn’t really done. She also knew she had to get it onstage anyway.
“It’s wonderful to release it from my brain,” Bunce says over the phone 10 days before the Yukon premiere of Our Lady of the Home. “Because I’ve had it inside me for so long, it was getting claustrophobic.”
In a way, that feeling mirrors the show, which revolves around a 1960s housewife named Liza, trapped in her home one day. Over the course of the hour-long performance, Bunce, through Liza, explores questions around substance use, gender roles, authentic choice, empowerment when it comes to our own health, capitalism, mental wellness and more.
If that sounds like a lot, just imagine squeezing it all into five minutes. That’s how the show started when Bunce first developed it while attending the National Circus School in Montreal. After graduating in 2019, she expanded it into a 15-minute set, eventually securing funding in 2023 to blow it out into a full show.
Since beginning performances in July of 2025, she continues to refine the show as she learns more about her audiences and the character she created—even though the idea came from personal experience.
When Bunce first left the Yukon at 16 to attend circus school, doctors told her she had anxiety and depression. For five years, she took medication to manage that. It was helpful, she says, but she also thinks feeling depressed and anxious is a reasonable reaction to leaving home at 16 and moving to the other side of the country. The experience made her consider the context in which people are unwell, and how women, especially, feel the need to change something inside themselves to achieve wellness rather than looking at the external factors that may be making them sick.
A lot of things can’t be said through language that can be said through the body. It has a wisdom we can’t access through the mind.”
Bunce couched the story in a 1960s setting because she felt it allowed her to more easily introduce comedy and surrealism into her commentary on current and pressing issues. She does this by working with contortion and aerial hoops. Liza is the only person physically onstage, but the presence of others is suggested by the set pieces that surround her. A coat rack with a men’s jacket is a reminder of the husband who’s out at work. The phone has a unique power over Liza. Lipstick serves as a substitute for the substances she turns to in her efforts to measure up to the standards placed on her as a woman.
Bunce’s show in no way aims to stigmatize people who take medications for mental health purposes. It does, however, explore why it is that doctors more frequently prescribe them to women. Again, the 1960s, when women were prescribed valium and various otherbenzodiazepines for stress and “hysteria,” provide the perfect lens to examine this.
Audience reactions so far have been fortifying and validating. Bunce was initially worried about performing a piece with so many symbols taking the place of dialogue (though there is speech, Our Lady is largely physical theatre), but she’s since realized she was underestimating audiences. Even those who haven’t watched a lot of contemporary circus pick up on the show’s subtleties.
Sometimes they get quite emotional, talking to her afterwards about themselves, or their own mothers and grandmothers who had it even tougher in terms of gender roles and expectations. Bunce thinks there’s something about watching an hour of a woman’s unfiltered reactions to life in the privacy of her own home that gives her audience permission to feel the same way too.
It’s intentional that she uses movement to open this door for audiences. One of the purposes of the piece is to suggest there are various forms of wisdom. In society, feelings are often minimized because things like intuition and emotion are labelled feminine. They’re valued less than thoughts, which are considered more masculine.
“Personally, I feel like the brain is a bit overused,” Bunce says. “A lot of things can’t be said through language that can be said through the body. It has a wisdom we can’t access through the mind.”
She hopes those who come out to the show on Sept. 12 are open to the idea, and up for discussion around it. Tickets are $25.
