sOmething sweet

by Ishwar Maharaj

Directed by Victoria di Pace

First performed at the International Theatre Festival, Milan 2008. A sister piece was created there to complement the play and was called The Leonardo Di Vinci Experience.

 

When Death decides to come knocking, how long can you not open the door?

 

Inspired by Leonardo Da Vinci's comment, "I thought I was learning to live, I was only learning to die", sOmething sweet tells the story of Billie RubberNeck being visited by Death, but refuses to let him in, insisting that she has life inside and cannot have them both in the same room, whereupon Death has an epileptic fit on her doorstep forcing her to bring him in and then slowly discovers after tea and small talk that she is in fact dead and more to the point, that Death tricked her and is not diabetic like he said but rather a big nuisance prone to popping up out of the blue when you least expect him and insisting he get his own way.

In a parallel universe there is a boy, also called Billy RubberNeck who has an abstract thought about killing himself and needing some ideas on how to do it, goes to seek Death at his house only to find the very eccentric and colourful Mother of Death, who is disgruntled at everyone being obsessed with her son Death and decides that she is going to take matters into her own hands and save this one.