Death be not proud

Perhaps the shortest summary of Irene Bianchi’s unipersonal Te invito a mi velorio (“I invite you to my wake”) is to say that it converts that famous phrase “dead man walking” into “dead woman talking” – instead of the final steps to the place of execution (with the former phrase often now broadened to cover any “huis clos” no-win situation), the taboo subject of death is made an intro to a sequence of sardonically thought-provoking reflections incorporating it into life.

So hard to be original in theatre today but, even allowing for the fact that John Donne wrote “Death, be not proud” in 1609, the curtain going up on the protagonist in a body-bag certainly comes across as something different. What follows is a stream of consciousness over 50 minutes vividly presented by Irene Bianchi in the style of a dead Molly Bloom inspired by Mors rather than Eros. Impossible to condense but perhaps the thought that not living is to be feared rather than death best conveys the spirit.

A born actress, Bianchi uses modulations of voice and gesture to perfection to put the words across. With a little help from her friends – this unipersonal is not just a one-woman show because lighting, background music and voices over are all a flawless complement to her efforts.

Last Saturday’s performance at the British Arts Centre formed part of Argentina’s First International Festival of Ecological Theatre, organised by Mónica Maffía, something this reviewer did not altogether understand because Te invito a mi velorio was anything or everything but – existential but not ecological (perhaps I’m missing something). Irene Bianchi’s soliloquy was followed by a video of various environmentalists where a valid core message was sometimes lost in eco-babble – impossible not to be impressed, however, by Elizabeth Freestone, Associate Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, showing from England (where it has rained for 40 straight days in some places) how the Avon has flooded almost up to the Stratford Theatre.

Last and probably least, the turnout was a bit disappointing – a couple of dozen people, undershooting your average real wake – but while last Saturday was a one-off as well as a unipersonal, Irene Bianchi has performed it before and will hopefully do so again.