Would you be able to end your child’s life if that’s all he or she ever asked for?
Directed by York theatre professor Aleksandar Lukac, the play BEA follows the struggles of a mother, Katherine, and her daughter Beatrice (the titular Bea), who wishes to end the physical and mental sufferings caused by her progressive chronic illness.
With Bea and her mother’s relationship strained by years of struggle, Bea’s new caregiver Raymond acts as an absurd mediator to bring both of their realities closer to one another. Within the layers of writer Mick Gordon’s text, the emotional intensity overshadows the underlying theme of language. There are terms for children who lose their parents and spouses who lose their partners. But what title do you give to a parent without a child?
“Even language knows that this isn’t meant to happen,” says Katherine. The terminology is crucial in understanding the problem of the euthanasia dogma. Language is a blanket of our perception, the questions asked in BEA don’t focus on whether you would put an end to a life. Rather, the questions ask whether you would save that life.
Performed brilliantly promiscuous and active in a character that has no physical and sexual ability to be either, Toronto based actress Bahareh Yaraghi’s portrayal of Bea and her control over the stage is sensational. Deborah Drakeford’s versatility is central in portraying the challenging role of Bea’s mother, Katherine, stuck in her dilemmas of love, guilt, and death. Brendan McMurtry-Howlett carries out the demanding role of Raymond emphatically and soulfully, highlighted by a solo performance of A Streetcar Named Desire, one of the plays finest moments.
Writer Mick Gordon is best known for his “On” collaborations (On Love, On Emotion, On Death), each with a unique perspective on the fundamentals that constitute our basic humanity. Lukac notes, “BEA could’ve easily been named On Empathy.”
Gordon’s text and Yaraghi’s performance bring to life the imaginations of Bea and her yearning desire to feel. We also witness the mental anguish Bea’s mother Katherine goes through in the midst of her daughter’s demands to assist her suicide and the notion of guilt in committing such an act.
Her character reflects the problems parents in these cases go through; they empathize with their child’s’ suffering and wish to help put an end to the pain, yet the vilification of assisted suicide can lead to an internal conflict that supersedes the criminal.
Empathy is a theme which prevails over all others in this play; to really be able to step into the shoes of the one suffering, you must love him or her unconditionally, and how can unconditional love lead to second degree murder?
“Dying is not a crime!” roared Al Pacino in the role of the infamous physician and euthanasia activist Jacob Kevorkian in the 2010 television film You Don’t Know Jack. You Don’t Know Jack takes a more overarching view of euthanasia as we witness Kevorkian tackling both fields of medicine and politics to inspire change in the legal system. Tried and convicted for his role in assisting 130 patients in voluntary euthanasia, Kevorkian served 8 years in prison.
The polarized figure could be seen as a murderer or a martyr, depending on where one stands on the euthanasia issue. In Kevorkian’s last interview with Larry King in June 2010, he said “That’s why I’m in medicine. Really…I’m not just handing out aspirin for some symptom or something. I mean, this is really where the rubber meets the road in medicine.”
Euthanasia is an ethical landmine. It is a subject both physicians and politicians distance themselves from. For the former, it seems to be an awkward and odd reversal of their role in society. For politicians, it is a controversial issue best kept under the carpet in favour of the voting bodies.
In Bea’s case however, we witness euthanasia through the emotional layers of a bedridden 29 year old, who has been deprived of the most basic acts in life we ‘normally’ take for granted.
On May 12, a panel discussion was held after a performance of BEA, featuring three distinguished guests: Ken Galinger, ethicist and writer for the Toronto Star, Joan Gilmour, of York’s Osgoode Hall Law School, and Dr. Sandy Buchman, lead palliative care physician at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto.
“Welcome to my everyday life,” said Buchman, “Bea realistically reflects the physical, emotional, psychological and existential suffering that individuals experiencing progressive chronic illness as well as their loved ones face in Canada in 2013.”
Amongst the panel members there is a general agreement that society is further ahead of politics on this issue, and this play is an example of how art is an excellent platform for addressing societal dogmas. In BEA’s case, the problem of euthanasia is not looked at as a crime worthy of punishment, rather, it projects a blessing in disguise.
Theatre @ York
The Euthanasia Theatre
York Professor Aleksander Lukac seeks to illuminate one of our most divisive ethical issues
Azad Imanirad
York theatre professor Aleksander Lukac’s new play, BEA, deals with a parent and child caught in the middle of the euthanasia debate. Lukac has been awarded Best Director at The Festival of Serbian Theatres a record six times. His past works include Bulgakov’s Moliere (Kiev Festival) and Ivan vs. Ivan which has toured Europe, including Moscow, London, and several cities in Serbia. Last year, he directed Peter Weiss’ Move.(me).ant, as part of a workshop for students in his third-year Approaches to Theatre class. I sat down with Lukac to discuss BEA.
What separates BEA from your previous theater experiences?
L: “Several things – I usually either direct plays with a more epic approach – larger stylistic scope and larger casts. BEA is probably the most intimate I have gone in my career.”
What was the most difficult/challenging aspect in directing BEA?
L: “Stemming from the first answer – finding a diversity in the expression and an exciting tempo with only three actors on stage. And convincing myself that an individual’s drama can still move the audience without involving too many varying contexts.”
And the most rewarding?
L: “Crying. Crying in rehearsal with my stage manager during several scenes. And then hearing the audiences cry in the same places. Then of course, the more articulated comments from the audience, which have so far been absolutely overwhelming. But crying first.”
Do you see the role of theater as an approach to criticize or create a platform in which societal issues can be discussed still significant? And what element in BEA do you find approachable in communicating with the audience? How do you connect audiences in a way that is larger than the play itself?
L: “Well, we had a panel [of experts, after the show] of people who are far more connected to the issues of assisted suicide than us, and I had a feeling they all appreciated that our play was going into places that are so challenging, meaning they expect that art can help in dealing with these hard issues by contextualizing and also finding a different language to address them.
I have dealt with political theater before (in Yugoslavia and Canada) and still believe that theater can address and possibly influence a discourse on the most difficult subjects in society.”
Let’s talk about the actors and your approach in working with them? Was it different from your past experiences? if so, how?
L: “I had a phenomenal cast at Actors Rep Company – Bahareh Yaraghi, Deb Drakeford and Brendan McMurtry-Howlett. It was one of the easiest jobs in terms of work. I think we were all, with the great help of our stage manager Jennifer Stobart, extremely aware of the delicate subject we were dealing with, and this awareness turned it into a family operation very quickly. I think that it is impossible to do this play in any other way.”
Why do you think the theme of assisted suicide is ignored by politicians, physicians, and the patient/loved ones? Why do they distance themselves from it?
L: “You were at the panel, and I think that the overwhelming conclusion was that the doctors and families want something to move along — that these situations be regulated to the best of our ability. Politicians don’t want to be on the hook for those decisions as they are very hard, complex, and would certainly stir up the voting bodies. Nobody wants that. It is a shame when you think of how many people are suffering and there is a lack of courage to help them in the way they want to be helped.”
Guilt, blame, sexuality, isolation, escape, free will; with so many themes in the play, was there one specific theme you yourself felt needed to be emphasized?
L: “Love. In this case, only total, unconditional, love could resolve Bea’s plea for death. Because she is asking for it from people closest to her and for whom this is the hardest possible choice. So to me, that emerged as the main theme amongst all others that are certainly present in the show.”
BEA runs from May 7-May 26. More info @ www.factorytheatrer.ca
Azad Imanirad
Contributor
