Itai Erdal prefaces this story by telling us that he is a great storyteller, and that he has never been shy about sharing his opinions. He is immediately treading on dangerous ground, because suddenly an entire audience has just imagined the greatest storyteller they know, and is expecting Itai to match up to that ideal. Likewise, before he has even begun the story, he has announced that he is going to express his view on the world and if anyone doesn't like it, he doesn't care, he is simply going to keep talking. "I really love to talk." Well then, I guess we're going to have to listen.
Itai is a theatre lighting designer and this story starts from the moment he got a call to say his mum had cancer and had nine months to live. He flew home to Israel to be with his family, and filmed the journey of his mother's illness until the end. As well as personal accounts told with mood-appropriate stage lighting, he shows us a selection of these films to take us through the journey, translating his mother, sister, or best friend's dialogue over the top. For one interview, he appropriates his sister's body language in the film and stands before her, mirroring her. In theory, this should be indicative of siblings who have suffered the same loss and come from the same place - a bittersweet notion. But instead, it jars, because what was the point of filming her, if he won't let her speak? He tells us that when they were younger, he was always louder, more competitive and more confident than she was. Again, this device is probably a neat portrayal of the dynamic of their relationship, but for anyone who has been the younger sibling only identifies with Itai's sister and an image of him talking over her at the dinner table is not a favourable one. We seem to have got off on the wrong foot and of course, this isn't even the point of the story.
So, what is the point? Gratefully, it is clear straight away that Itai is using the stage lighting to say something profound about the ephemeral nature of life. Between stories about his mother, he takes us through a series of lighting queues showing the effect and mood of various plots. His favourite is the PAR can light and as he stands beneath it, reducing the light from 100 to 0%, it is as if we are watching a life fade with a nuanced nod to the piece's title. Furthermore, his observation that "it gets warmer as it gets darker" is a neat preamble to his personal justification for euthanasia - for helping to relieve his mother of her pain. After the final footage of his mother, he pulls the plug on a light at the front of the stage with the simplicity of a technician working on a get-out. It is, arguably, the most honest moment of the whole piece, and we discern exactly what he means by this action.
Sadly, the honesty doesn't last long. Within the earlier stage lighting demonstration, Itai had shown us a square of spotlight which, as he said himself, gives the impression that an actor is about to say something profoundly moving. We all laughed, recognising the aesthetic. After Itai pulls the plug, he steps into this square of light as if he were that actor. But as this is a true story, suddenly the effect of the spotlight is confused - are we supposed to laugh as we did before? Loaded with the symbolism of the plug, this moment jarred. Any potential for recognising raw emotion was shrouded in the façade of technical theatre. Call me cold-hearted, but my emotional investment was tarnished by the previous insincerity.
A lot about this piece should work beautifully, but unfortunately, so much of it is to the contrary. It is saying something interesting about death, euthanasia and the temporal effect of stage lighting, and thereby questions the value we place on an individual life. But on a stage voluntarily surrounded by alienation and falsehood - a place for actors, deceptive lighting techniques and the distancing effect of a screen - it is difficult to sympathise, even while Itai wipes the tears from his eyes. The line between reality and fiction is clearly drawn for us and then blurred, to a disorientating degree, leaving a numb disconnection. Furthermore, in terms of the controversial address of euthanasia, for a man to justify his actions and be understood, we need to trust him implicitly, which is difficult to achieve alongside the aspect of theatre that lies the most.
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