I WISH TO DIE SINGING (Finborough Theatre)****

By Cal

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROwZ8Ql6sZc

Link with subtitles: https://www.scenesaver.co.uk/production/i-wish-to-die-singing-subtitled/

Available until: 31 December 2020

Warning: 18+ Descriptions of violence, mutilation, sexual assault, murder, race hatred

In many ways, this feels more like a documentary than a play. There are positives and negatives which I’ll discuss later, but it led me to wonder why there are so few documentary plays. There are obviously a lot of documentaries on TV and a few documentary films, but plays seem to be almost exclusively telling stories. Some are true stories, but all are presented as a sort of fiction.

Is there any reason why a documentary shouldn’t be performed live to an audience? On the surface, no. Many people who enjoy the theatre also watch documentaries, and not just those that are theatre-related. Also, the idea of non-fiction isn’t completely new to the stage. Talks can be given to a live audience in a theatre. Interviews with celebrities can be presented live onstage. Many comedians talk about things that happened to them in real life. Although documentaries often include sequences shot in a number of different places and sometimes, the physical appearance of a place might be an important part of the documentary, part of the magic of the theatre is that a stage can be turned into anything.

The biggest concern for me with live documentaries it would be extremely challenging and painful for a real person to talk through a difficult and very real experience eight times a week for however long the run is. It is much easier for them to say it once or twice (or however many times the director requires) into a camera in the safety of a set, knowing (ideally) that they can try again if it goes wrong. But many documentaries are about things that happened in the past – too long ago for any living person to remember it. The subject of this play is the Armenian Genocides of 1915. Very few of the survivors are likely to be still alive today.

The idea of a documentary onstage feels quite strange, but I Wish to Die Singing shows there is a place for documentaries in the theatre. The people featured in the play are played by actors, but Neil McPherson’s play is based on the words of people who survived it and the actors will, in some cases, be speaking a real person’s words. One actor takes the role of a narrator, addressing the audience as she explains what happened in Armenia. In between pieces of narration, the actors have monologues about their characters’ experiences. Occasionally, there are scenes in which two actors communicate, but mostly, the narrator gives you facts, then an actor presents someone’s experiences as a first person monologue.

One possible disadvantage of this approach is that it’s more difficult to get to know the characters (though there is a very sweet little girl who is full of personality and a young man who goes from being charmingly boyish to older and sadder), but I actually see that as a strength. The Armenian Genocides were terrible tragedies and it doesn’t matter who the people were as individuals. Whether we like or dislike them is not important. They did not deserve the things that happened to them and the things they saw. This isn’t a story where we get to know the characters and make our own judgements about what they deserve. This is a real life event which nobody deserved.

Writer Neil McPherson has written a clear, comprehensible and cohesive play. One subject moves naturally into another. He assumes that nobody in the audience knows about the Armenian Genocides, but there’s no dumbing-down. There’s also no sugar-coating and some of the descriptions are upsetting, but they’re not presented with relish or with unnecessary detail.

There’s no cast list (which would be difficult to produce when the actors play different characters) so I can’t name the actors who played particular roles, but I think the lady who played the narrator’s role did an outstanding job. As someone who hopes to become a teacher, I’ve learned it’s not at all easy to stand in front of an audience and be interesting. There are always people who don’t want to listen and would rather be talking about something else, but even when a class wants to hear about something, they’re unlikely to enjoy themselves if the teacher presents the lesson badly. But the narrator judges the role perfectly – she puts enough animation into her words to make the stories feel real, but not so much that it seems inappropriate for the subject matter.

The rest of the ensemble of actors give powerful performances, whether telling their stories as a monologue or acting out small scenes. They are told simply and seriously and with no over-dramatisation. Sometimes with no dramatisation at all. They tell us of atrocities which shouldn’t have happened but did; which shouldn’t be forgotten but have been. It is a shock to discover the identity of one of the most famous people to have spoken about the Armenian Genocides.

One thing I found particularly interesting was the explanation of why Armenian names end ‘ian’. A few days ago, I watched the Globe Theatre’s Deep Night, Dark Night, which consisted of three contrasting ghost stories. The final story was Armenian and the character explained that all Armenian surnames ended ‘ian’. This made such an impression on me, I was actually slightly worried that only one of the actors in I Wish to Die Singing had an ‘ian’ surname. Nowadays, we want characters to be played by actors who are ethnically correct and I hoped the actors were more Armenian than they sounded (the play shows the images of celebrities with Armenian ancestry and there are a few surprises), or at least that some attempt had been made to cast Armenian actors. But after what the play revealed about the source of the ‘ian’ inflection, it’s easy to understand why some people might prefer not to use a name like that.

It’s not easy to watch, but it’s a beautifully-crafted and sensitive performance.