In February 2020, while dealing with bushfires and the looming pandemic, Michele Lee called her parents every day for 30 minutes. How Do I Let You Die? is a culmination of those conversations resulting in a gentle interrogation of life and death through the perspective of her Hmong parents and Lee's relationship with them.
As we take our seat, actor Alice Qin sits at a desk covered with post-it notes and politely acknowledges us. She introduces herself as writer Michele Lee, and begins to share with us the conversations with her parents, what brought her to that point and where these conversations led her.
In Islamic religion, Muslim men who die as "believers" are
rewarded with 72 beautiful perpetual virgins as wives
in heaven. These women are known as houris. In Emina Ashman's Make Me A
Houri, two women who meet in the afterlife begin to question and confront
how religion and society view and use their bodies and their spirits.
Ashman creates some moving poetry with her story of these two women as they
come to grapple with their own desire and the expectations placed upon them. Regardless
how confronting the topics discussed are, through her considered and open dialogue, she allows the audience to lower their guard and be drawn into what
is transpiring. Where this story comes up short is that the characters are
largely unchanged throughout it. There is no build up to anything climatic or
revelatory and the women remain static as they recall personal experiences
that lead into deeper philosophical analysis.
The greatest mystery in life is death. Not only what happens after we die but also the not knowing when death might come. I could choke on the food I am eating as I write this review. Death comes for everyone but it is always unexpected. In Aleksandr Corke's Q, we meet a young man called K who has died and must now wait and see what comes next.
The first act opens with two workers (played with subtle comedy flair by Reilly Holt and Ashleigh Gray) preparing for something - or someone - as they attempt to open a locked folder. Eventually K (Wil King) arrives. He has died and the locked file is the file of his life. An inspector (Alanah Allen) is called in to determine why the file will not open and discovers that K has been taken too early from Earth and he must decide if he'll go through the arduous task of returning back to his life or simply sign a waiver and allow himself to die, which will unlock his folder.
