The play’s title alone makes one thing very clear: Before I’m Dead will not be pulling its punches. To describe this latest work by playwright James Rushbrooke as intense would be understating the play’s power to draw its audience in and engage with their most sensitive emotions.
It’s not the subject matter alone that does it. By the time Zara (Myla Carmen) is introduced, the title of the play, the character’s head covering and the fact that the character is meeting with a therapist from a palliative wish-granting charity have made it clear that Zara is dying.
Rushbrooke and director Oli Savage make some intelligent decisions here to express a visceral sense of Zara’s illness. Before I’m Dead begins at a breathless pace, immersing the audience in a feeling of life slipping away, while interspersing these scenes with flashbacks that move much slower. The contrast cleverly mirrors Zara’s brain tumour symptoms, where her daily life is interrupted by seizures.
By creating this environment, Rushbrooke and Savage blur the emotional lines between character, actor and audience, making way for empathy towards the characters. It’s hard not to feel immersed while in a venue as intimate as The Glitch, but Carmen also embodies Zara seamlessly.
It is not just in the way the actor nails the feisty and dry humour typical of many teenagers. It is how Carmen manages to take their character’s sass, and slowly chisel it open to reveal a vulnerability that feels raw and real. Despite the challenges theatre in the round can pose for an evocative play like this, Carmen succeeded in maintaining the audience’s attention and empathy. No matter the angle, there was no looking away from Zara’s encroaching mortality.
Clearer exploration into the characters’ backgrounds could have brought in interesting new layers: for example, clarifying how Zara’s challenging parental relationships affect the character’s approach to mortality as well as the dynamic with the therapist Stuart, and how Stuart’s history shapes his approach to Zara.
However, Before I’m Dead as it stands still communicates its message, and Pete Ashmore does a fantastic job of expressing the inner conflict, unearthed trauma and grief that his character Stuart experiences while working with Zara. As actors, Carmen and Ashmore are magnetic.
It’s a bond that doesn’t seem likely at first, but by the end, it’s clear that Before I’m Dead is less about Zara’s death, and more about the unexpected results of letting one’s guard down. Based on the tears and the sobbing in the audience, Rushbrooke, Savage, Carmen and Ashmore managed to dismantle a lot of guards that night.
Listings and ticket information can be found here
