Death is the ultimate fact of life, but in an age when many of us might prefer to see death as an optional extra, Laura Wade’s play, ‘Colder Than Here’, is a timely wake up call.
Wife and mother of two, Myra, has no choice but to face this fact. She is suffering with terminal bone cancer. She is determined to die on her own terms, so pathos is to be expected – though you might not expect a play about a painful death, to be so funny.
In the same way that Myra has organised her life, so she organises her death – checking out potential burial plots and making funeral plans. As she points out: “You have to find things to do. When you’re off work with dying.”
Meanwhile, Myra’s husband, Alec, is struggling to get the boiler fixed, “I can’t really do problems”, and her daughters, Harriet and Jenna, are dealing with their mother’s illness in very different ways – but have their own issues to confront. This is a family which has never had, and may never acquire, “this fully-functioning- Talking thing.”
‘Colder Than Here’ is an unsentimental play of love, death and grief, which ‘balances raw emotion with a deliciously delicate black humour.’ It is about control, cardboard coffins and woodland burials. It’s about a family’s preparation for the inevitable and the conversations which many of us dread.
‘Colder Than Here’ was first performed at London’s Soho Theatre in 2005 and this production from Wildgoose Theatre, marks its premiere performance in York.