SPLICE devised and performed by Peter Bramley, Carolyn Cohagan, Lucy Egger and Ann-Marie Kerr. Presented by Blue Inc. at the Factory Studio. July 6 at 2:30 pm, July 7 at 9:30 pm, July 9 at 5:30 pm, July 11 and 15 at 8 pm, July 12 at noon, July 14 at 3 pm.

Toronto theatre artist Ann-Marie Kerr and her three cohorts, Brit Peter Bramley, New Yorker Carolyn Cohagan and Aussie Lucy Egger, are having breakfast with Darth Vader and R2D2 when I call them in Blind River, six hours north of Toronto.The quartet are devouring videos, rehearsing and getting inspiration for Splice, their one-hour take on a century of cinema.

From early silent films to a Hitchcock montage, a Spielberg medley and an eight-minute Star Wars trilogy, Splice races through favourite images of pop-cult films.

"We think of it as a theatrical ode rather than a history of movies," says Kerr, who met her fellow physical-theatre performers when they all studied in Paris with the venerated Jacques Lecoq during the last year of his life.

"We're not trying to do impersonations, but, rather, to catch the spirit and atmosphere of the films."

They have to be economic in how they tell a story -- Spielberg is all about light, a Godfather sequence uses masks and dance -- in order to give a suggestive whiff of their sources.

"The biggest challenge is Hitchcock, how to extract perspective and camera angles and put them onstage," adds Kerr, who's performed with Shakespeare in the Rough and coached movement for Soulpepper. "For instance, we're doing the bell tower scene in Vertigo with a series of broom handles. That's the kind of creative leap we've had to make.

"We're hoping not to be precious, not to spoof the material nor turn the show into a sentimental tribute. Lecoq was big on not doing parody, and we hear his voice loudly in our heads."