Racist, homophobic and Islamophobic writings on the walls of University of Victoria washrooms have sparked a unique response from its equity and human rights office and the theatre department.

The two have combined to produce a 30-minute interactive play, The Writing on the Wall, staged at various high-traffic areas around the campus. Its audiences will be passersby -- students, staff, faculty and visitors -- who stumble upon the performance.

"We're not dealing with this privately. We're dealing with it as a community," director and sessional lecturer Renée Livernoche says, explaining the decision to go public with the issue.

One alternative might have been an anti-hate workshop, but the human rights office's Moussa Magassa knows who it would attract.

"You'd be preaching to the converted," he says.

The portable set suggests four washroom stalls. Masked actors dressed in white represent both those who scribble hate and those who unwittingly encounter it. There is no script, just what the five actors (applied theatre students) improvised in rehearsals, according to Livernoche. Rather than spoken word, the actors rely on body language and mime.

The cast is only half the performance, with the audience supplying the rest, Livernoche says. Some non-actors associated with production will spark dialogue from within the audience on what's happening on stage.

There will be magic markers so audience members can also write their own messages or reactions onto the set walls. Whatever is scribbled remains until the end of the three weeks of performance. Later it will be displayed on campus as installation art, Livernoche says.

Magassa sees staging the play in this format as an invitation to "critical thinking." Those who walk by will first wonder 'what's happening here?' and then ask themselves 'why are they doing it?' he says.

It was Magassa who decided last year to focus on the wall writings targeting specific groups. He

hasn't been at UVic long enough to know if it has been increasing over the last five or six years. However, he suspects it may be getting worse.

"I think people are noticing it more," he says.

Yet Magassa himself had not noticed it until it was brought to his attention.

"Every time I go to the washroom, I look for it and I find it," he says. "Now, I reflect on its significance. I try to understand why someone would write such a message."

Cast member Lauren Jerke hadn't given much thought to the problem of hate messages until joining the production.

"It can deeply affect people and hurt them," Jerke says.

It's a mystery as to who is leaving these unsigned hate messages, according to Magassa. "Who'll ever admit it?"

The anonymity of it means there is little risk of being caught, he adds. Hate messages are far more likely to be found in men's washrooms.

Women tend to write nicer and caring messages, according to what Magassa has been told.

Performances are:

- McPherson Library near Petch Fountain: Today at 10:30 a.m. and Nov. 13, 12:30 p.m.

- Student Union Building facing Ring Road: Nov. 13 at 12:30 p.m. and Nov. 18, 4 p.m.

- University Centre, under the shelter: Nov. 20, 12:30 p.m.