Lizan Mitchell (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, The Good Wife, The Wire) and Kim Tatum aka Mzz Kimberley (EastEnders, Cold Feet, Project Cat Walk) will star in Dead and Breathing, the acclaimed US social satire by Chisa Hutchinson which will play at Unity (Liverpool) from 7 – 17 February 2018 and then The Albany (London) 19 February – 3 March 2018.
Spiteful old Carolyn Whitlock wants to die already. She’s been sick with cancer for almost as long as she can remember and the pain has made her so mean that there’s no one left who loves her.
Carolyn just wants to give up, but in order to do so, she’s going to have to work harder than she ever has in her privileged life to convince her very Christian nurse Veronika to help her. But Veronika isn’t all she seems, and so before Carolyn can die in peace, they’ll both need to let go of everything they believe about what is right.
Can this well-to-do widow, slowly succumbing to cancer manage to convince, her home nurse, to help her end her life? It wouldn’t be easy at the best of times, but it becomes almost impossible when Carolyn finds a final hurdle she must overcome. Spoiled, privileged, sheltered and judgemental she is repulsed by transsexuals and Veronika happens to be one. If Carolyn wants her own way, she will not only have to convince Veronika to do something that goes against her every belief; she will also need to choose what she denounces with revulsion as “death by tranny.”
‘Dead and Breathing’ is a dark comedy of ethics and mortality that positions the right to die against the right to live your own life. Through constantly surprising humour and persistent questioning, ‘Dead and Breathing’ investigates morality, mortality, and the intense tug-of-war between the right to die with dignity and the idea of life as a gift.
This is a coming together of long-term director/writer collaborators; award winning film and theatre maker Rebecca Atkinson-Lord and multi award winning playwright Chisa Hutchinson.
