Posted in: Comics, Pop Culture | Tagged: Alan Moore, Bill Sienkiewicz, Brought To Light, canada, graphic novel, Shadowplay, stage
Alan Moore And Bill Sienkiewicz’s Shadowplay Official Stage Adaptation
Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz’s Brought To Light: Shadowplay is being officially brought to the stage, for one night only in Canada
Article Summary
- Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz’s Shadowplay is getting an official one-night-only stage adaptation in Toronto.
- Brought To Light: Shadowplay began as Moore and Sienkiewicz’s blistering 1988 graphic novel on CIA covert crimes.
- James Llewellyn Evans turned an unofficial tribute into an authorized Alan Moore adaptation with approval from all three.
- Shadowplay 1989 plays The Wych on October 25, mixing handmade staging, Sienkiewicz art projections, and live debate.
Brought To Light: Shadowplay was a political graphic novel published by Eclipse Comics in 1988, co-published with Warner Books for broader distribution in 1989, as well as from Titan Comics. Both are based on research and lawsuits filed by the Christic Institute against the USA concerning CIA covert operations. The first half, Shadowplay: The Secret Team, was written by Alan Moore and painted by Bill Sienkiewicz, with an introduction by Daniel Sheehan, general counsel for the Christic Institute. The comic showed an ageing, anthropomorphic American eagle, a personification of the CIA in a seedy bar, getting increasingly drunk, and talking to the audience about decades of CIA history and covert actions in a boastful, bellicose, and increasingly unhinged manner, going from early Cold War interventions in Italy, Iran and Guatemala, into the Vietnam War and and relationships with the likes of Augusto Pinochet and Manuel Noriega, leading to drug smuggling, arms deals, assassinations, and other black ops, including the Iran-Contra affair and related activities, repeatedly quantifying deaths in terms of Olympic-sized swimming pools filled with blood. The other half, Flashpoint: The La Penca Bombing, was written by Joyce Brabner and drawn by Tom Yeates, a more straightforward telling of the 1984 La Penca bombing in Nicaragua involving Contra leader Edén Pastora and the subsequent investigation by Martha Honey and Tony Avirgan. Physical copies are relatively scarce and can command high prices on the secondary market. An audio adaptation of Shadowplay was released in 1998 by Codex Books, with Alan Moore narrating his own script set to music by Gary Lloyd, which is even scarcer.
Well, now James Llewellyn Evans is bringing it to the stage in Toronto, Canada as Shadowplay 1989, originally an “unauthorised tribute act” but after reaching out to Alan Moore, Bill Sienkiewicz and Gary Lloyd to let them know of his intentions, he found that he had suddenly been given permission by all three, making the show an authorised adaptation.
Shadowplay 1989 is for one night only. The venue is a small bar called The Wych on Davenport Road in Toronto. The costumes, props, and set decorations, including a conspiracy board of portraits of every named historical figure, are all handmade and accompanied by rear-projections of Sienkiewicz’s artwork as illustrated subtitles. He hopes that it may lead to more performances in the future and he is in active conversation with Alan Moore via his representatives about the show’s future. James tells me “we’re taking promo video and photos at the venue on the 10th, shooting a first-person dress rehearsal in the empty bar on the 18th and sending those to Moore and Sienkiewicz for quotes and appraisals, and then the show on the 25th. It hasn’t been performed live since before I was born, and with the rolling declassifications of CIA history, this has all mostly gone from libellous conspiracy theory to demonstrable fact. These villains deserve to be remembered for what they’ve done. Lest we forget…”
Shadowplay 1989 by James Llewellyn Evans
Sunday, October 25th 2026, 8-9 pm, The Wych, Toronto, Ontario, Canada“You don’t remember how you came to be here” Enjoy a speciality cocktail and listen to The Company Man reminisce about his past in a blood-soaked 45-minute journey into American history… 1989: Meet the Company Man, an embodiment of the Central Intelligence Agency, as he drunkenly spills the secret history of American foreign policy: drug dealing, gun-running, torture and assassination. As the Cold War draws to a close, he reminisces about a legacy measured in swimming pools’ worth of blood, foreshadowing the horrors of the 21st century. Tickets in advance for $25 or at the door for $30. Guests are encouraged to stick around after the performance and discuss the subject matter. WARNING: This work contains coughing, slurs, drugs, suicide, loud noises and war crimes.
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