“Rest in peace, Papa.” is a documentary theatre project triggered by my restless experience watching my grandpa’s prolonged journey to death. “I look at him, standing alone in the middle of the room, his limbs shaking, his mouth watering, his face looking lost. He is stuck in a body yet to perish, yet he is no longer aware of his imprisonment.”
Based on verbatim materials (family recordings, videos and diaries) and devised by the ensemble, we try to re-imagine a narrative different from his formal eulogy. It dives into the dying man’s internal world, explores the unvoiced tension within the family, and unpacks the generational gap hardened by speeding socio-historical advance. Meanwhile, the innocence of these young performers shed some interesting light on this weighty subject. Their particular handling of hospice tasks, alienated role-playing, and spontaneous improvisation enrich the show with lyrical variations and intertextual reading.
As we gaze into the eyes of “papa”, we not only see him but many like him. What do we want to see when we see them? What does their existence mean to us?