Publicity for the Shadow Theatre show Bea had enough warnings that I knew it would be about a young person who wants to die with dignity or on her own terms. That topic’s not for everyone, so I was glad to know that much. Bea was written by Northern Irish playwright Mick Gordon, in 2010. This production was directed by Amanda Goldberg, a recent Artistic Director Fellowship holder at Shadow Theatre.

I was intrigued to see recent BFA grads Michael Watt and Kristen Unruh on a professional stage, along with Kate Newby (she played Dorothy Parker in Fresh Hell at Shadow a couple of years ago).

The other thing I knew about the production beforehand was that the set was partially crowdsourced. I saw an appeal from set designer Ximena Pinilla for old costume jewellery, so I dropped off a bag of shiny things. The focus of the set was a bed. On one side were the trappings of medical care, with one of those wheeled over-bed tables that I’ve seen in hospitals and nursing homes. On the other side of the bed were a young woman’s personal belongings and a rack of fabulous outfits. And above — suspended above and behind the bed were big grid displays of earrings. Like a Claire’s to excess.

Kristen Unruh’s character Bea enters, dancing, singing, sprawling on the floor to read a magazine. She might be sixteen, or a decade older, but she’s clearly lively and joyful and this is her space. Then a young man in rumpled shirt and too-short tie enters nervously, holding a satchel and his CV. Ray (Michael Watt) is her new personal care assistant – or he’s interviewing for the job, it’s not quite clear. And as the other character enters, Bea gradually melts onto the bed. She’s still animated, mouthy, full of poetry and wordplay, sitting cross-legged on her bed and enjoying putting the awkward young man on the spot. They connect. And in this first meeting, she asks him to take dictation, as she speaks a letter to her mother, saying that she wishes to die and wants her mother to help her.

Bea’s mother Catherine (Kate Newby) then arrives to give Ray a sterner scrutiny and tell him the rules of employment – from “No prurience” (which he admits he needs to look up later) and “Kindness” to “No secrets” – awkward because he is already carrying one secret, the dictated letter. As Catherine, a lawyer in severe black suit, grills Ray, I become aware that Bea has collapsed immobile onto her stack of pillows. Is this how her body really is, in the time of the play? We see this contrast playing out over and over throughout the narrative – Bea dancing and active alone and sometimes with Ray, but also needing to be fed and bathed, speaking with difficulty, twitching in pain.

I found the character Bea likeable and funny and frank. I revised my age-estimate upwards when she tells an uncomfortable Ray that she hasn’t had sex for nine years and misses it. Ray is clearly on her side. He jumps into her stories and daydreams, reluctantly revealing bits of his own context.

One of the most enjoyable bits of the play, for me, is the part where Ray brings in a script for A Streetcar Named Desire, introduces the classic, and reads it / acts it out with Bea. Both Unruh and Watt are up to the physical, emotional, and vocal challenges of these roles, and I look forward to seeing each of them again.

Every time Ray is taking frivolous liberties, though, Catherine walks in and is horrified. The audience gets to expect this. It’s still funny in a rule-of-three way, but maybe it’s not all needed. I do love Kate Newby’s still body language and flat affect with horror underneath.

In a few Catherine-Bea scenes, we learn that the two of them have been on their own for several years. They love and respect each other – and Catherine does still see Bea as the playful clever girl of the solo scenes and memories, not just the patient.

So the stakes are very high, when Catherine learns of Bea’s “demand”. And in fact even higher, because they live in a place and time without MAiD (medical assistance in dying), where assisted suicide would be prosecuted as murder. So in one shocking change-of-mood scene without Bea present, Ray explains to Catherine how it should be done, if/when she chooses. Details about how to ensure that a first attempt is successful, but also details about how to present it afterwards to the police and legal authorities. Blunt, explicit, disturbing. How does young Ray know all of this and speak with authority? I can make up a backstory but it’s not in the text.

The actors were great, but the script left me with some questions. I wondered if it would have been stronger if shorter, or if the repeating cycle of visits from Ray, revelations and intimacies, judgement by Catherine, re-connection between Catherine and Bea … was all necessary to make us care about Bea and her people and to see the necessity and the anguish of her death. The illness is not named, and that was probably a better choice than giving us a specific diagnosis that we might know about. We learn that she won’t get better, but it wasn’t clear to me whether she was getting worse and whether it would eventually kill her. There were a few Canadian references sprinkled in – the story about Ray’s friend trying to hold up a CIBC and accidentally going to Kentucky Fried Chicken was not the only one, there was a reference that made me think Toronto – but there was other wording that felt natively British (Ray’s friend in that story having a nickname like Bazza or Jazzer, for example) so that distracted me.

I have not been intimately involved with a MAiD or assisted suicide situation myself, although pre-MAID I have helped to make a decision to remove life support. The practical awfulness of implementing Bea’s request, as shown on stage, definitely confirmed my belief that there are some situations in which offering MAiD would be more humane. But, as the director’s program note quotes disability dramaturg Miranda Allen, “When MAiD is available and supports for living are not, MAiD becomes problematic.” That’s not relevant to the characters on stage – for them, assisted suicide is illegal, and it seems that Catherine is financially able to support Bea in comfort and employ Ray as caregiver. But it’s an important thought for any audience member who might go away smugly distancing ourselves from the dilemma of the play. Death and life are even more messy and complicated, in real life and real death.

Bea is playing at the Varscona Theatre on 83 Avenue until February 9th. Lots to think about, and more fun than I expected. Tickets available here.