Make death | Thinking about your death to live it better

Contemplating your own death and that of your loved ones is scary. However, it is in the hope of opening a breach in this too often avoided subject that Krystel Descary wrote her most recent piece, entitled make death and presented this Tuesday at Espace Go.

For several years, the playwright and performer has been closely interested in supporting people at the end of their lives. She stayed by her grandmother’s side in the days before her death and realized through the events of her life that she had a “natural predisposition to navigate this stage of life” . She even signed up for introductory training in the work of thanadoula, these midwives of death who accompany the dying towards their last breath.

This “predisposition” led her to write make deatha documented autofiction which revolves around various elements of her life: her childhood with a single-parent mother, sporadic encounters with a father who did not recognize her at birth, the death of a friend , a car accident that could have killed her… “Everything is true in this piece, even if I added fictional elements with the role of the thanadoula,” explains Krystel Descary.

This character, played by the playwright herself, guides the audience through the various stages of the “slowing down process” that is death. All with kindness and a large share of light. “Thinking about my own death is an exercise that changed my life,” says the artist, who hopes that his text opens for spectators “a path to start thinking and going inside themselves, in a very gentle way.”

“Death is an unknown territory for those who leave as well as for those who stay,” she insists. You have to think about it in advance. When illness arrives or death is sudden, you must be in contact with this space within yourself, otherwise, the stages will be harder to live through. »

Director Marie-Ève ​​Milot is aware that the subject can be frightening or off-putting. “However, there is something terribly luminous in this spectacle. We want to approach mourning differently, in a very liberating way. I believe that thinking about your own death allows you to go through your life wondering how to remain fully alive. »

She continues: “It is very important to me that the audience remains accompanied from the moment they enter until they leave the room. Spectators will also be invited, if they wish, to participate in a ritual by depositing an object that will have been offered to them at the start of the performance. » Music and singing will also take a prominent place, with the presence on stage of musician Mykalle Bielinski.

“Having a space to mourn is necessary in a hyperactive society that pays you two days to mourn a mother, a brother,” adds the woman who lost her brother last year, following a heart attack. “This show is the best thing that could have happened in my life, because my job meets a personal quest in a very deep and sensitive way. »

The lure of death

Krystel Descary has thought a lot about the appeal that death has for her. “Since I was very young, I think I have had an interest in everything mystical: death, the aftermath, the afterlife… With hindsight and many years of therapy, I understand that my father’s absence has something to do with it. He most likely represented the invisible, the unknown. I think I’ve always had an interest in trying to understand what’s not visible. »

His show thus addresses the various bereavements that punctuate our lives. “There are bereavements that are forbidden: the bereavement of an unrecognized child, of an adopted child, of a miscarriage, of a career, of a family… There is a denial in the face of these bereavements , because the entire social circle denies them. It ends up creating dysfunction. »

Whether small, large, invisible or experienced in broad daylight, grief is an integral part of life. And it is the universality of the subject that the two women wish to put forward with make death. “We are all going to lose a loved one, we are all going to die. The show is an occasion, an opportunity to open a door, despite the discomfort,” insists Marie-Ève ​​Milot.

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