Julie McIsaac

What’s more important: making sure your child has the best life possible, or making sure another child has the chance to live?

In Bleeding Heart Collective’s guest production of Mother Teresa is Dead (by Helen Edmundson), that’s the question posed when a young mother abandons her husband, son, and comfortable London digs without a word, turning up among the street children in the slums of India.

Immediately after giving birth to her first child, Jane is inundated with pleas from charities around the world reminding her that while she cradles her sleeping child in her arms, other mothers will bury theirs. In secret, Jane makes a decision: her son will be okay without her, these other children will not. The question remains: is she right?

“I just knew that I had to get down on my knees and help someone not die.”

Mother Teresa is Dead addresses questions previously unasked in the theatre: “Philanthropy is a really boring word, and that’s why they don’t make shows about it,” says Pacific Theatre’s Artistic Director Ron Reed, “but actually, ‘to give or not to give’ is a fundamental question that eats up most of us.” Helen Edmundson examines this concept in depth through one family’s experience, straddling the divide between caring for themselves and caring for another.

Mother Teresa is Dead stars Julie McIsaac (The Spitfire Grill), Katharine Venour (My Name is Asher Lev), Kayvon Kelly (The Graduate), and Sebastian Kroon (The Busy World is Hushed). It is directed by Evan Frayne (The Verona Project).

Mother Teresa is Dead “is a tough and moving drama that nags away at the conscience long after you have left the theatre.” — The Telegraph

Mother Teresa is Dead
Dates: March 1 to 23; Wednesday to Saturday, 8 pm; Saturday, 2 pm matinee
Venue: Pacific Theatre, 1440 West 12th Avenue (at Hemlock), Vancouver
Tickets: $17.99 to $29.99 (plus HST); available online or via phoning 604.731.5518

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