RTA alumni bring comedy about end-of-life choices to Fringe Festival

When David Schatzky (Radio and Television Arts ’68) reached out to his long-time friend Kate Barris (RTA ’74) to write a play, he didn’t predict they’d concoct a comedy, called Dead Right (external link) , about an ailing woman who forges an end-of-life pact with her partner, one that her daughter is intent on kiboshing.

Now that play will premiere at this summer’s Toronto Fringe Festival. 

Ten years ago, Schatzky, a former CBC radio host, who was enjoying his second career in psychotherapy at the time, just knew he wanted to write a play, recalling his teenage and young adult days of acting and directing in community theatre. And he knew that his fellow theatre-lover friend, Kate, who’d written for Today’s Special, Mr. Dressup, Max and Ruby and more, would be the perfect writing partner.

What followed was a decade-long odyssey where the two wrote the play and sought a stage for it. They hashed out the themes and characters, often with Kate sitting in the client chair of Schatzky’s psychotherapy office. 

“We'd be sitting there laughing hysterically at scenes that we had envisioned. Then I would leave, and there'd be somebody waiting to see David, their therapist,” says Barris. “They might have been wondering, ‘Why don't we laugh like that in our sessions?’”

Between Helena, the woman determined to end her life, Helena’s partner, Bud, who is having second thoughts about the suicide pact, Helena’s daughter, Suzanna who is against the whole idea, and Suzanna’s neurotic psychotherapist husband Michael, “we have all of these different perspectives crushed together in a confined space,” explains Barris. Meanwhile, with the daughter quitting her advertising job “to be a real writer” – much like Barris herself did – the story exposes the courage it takes not only to embrace one’s death, but also one’s life.

“Our goal was to take something that you wouldn’t think to dive into with a comedy, to see if we can break that rule,” says Barris. “We’re both rule breakers.” The challenge the rule breakers faced was that the play had to fit within the confines of the grassroots Toronto Fringe Festival. 

With the Fringe Festival, Barris explains, “you have 15 minutes to set up everything on stage, and 15 minutes to clear out, and we have a fairly complicated set.” The do-it- yourself nature of the Fringe Festival, which features both well-known and first-time playwrights, means that Barris and Schatzky had to source (and even make) props, cast the actors for the play, and do their own publicity. Schatzky credits Barris for largely seeing their script through to the stage. 

Barris said one of the most rewarding parts of bringing the play to life was casting Helena and Bud. “Actors in their 70s don't get all that many opportunities to be on the stage,” she says. But with Dead Right, the older actors get to take on a “pretty demanding comedy.”  

While Barris hopes that the play “spurs conversation in people” about what end-of-life choices they might want for themselves, the long-time friends and theatre lovers mostly want people to laugh. As Schatzky puts it, “If people leave the theatre and say, ‘Ah, that was good. I enjoyed that,’ that would be the greatest reward.” 

Dead Right plays at the Toronto Fringe Festival from July 4-14.  

Alumnae Theatre, 70 Berkeley St, Toronto, ON M5A 2W6

For more info visit the play’s website (external link)  and the Toronto Fringe Festival site (external link) .