Theatre / God by Ferdinand von Schirach, translated by David Tushingham, directed and designed by Lexi Sekuless. At Mill Theatre, Fyshwick, until December 18. Reviewed by ALANNA MACLEAN.

The play God takes on an intriguing courtroom form as it pulls the audience into considering the ethics of assisted dying. At the end the audience has to vote on whether Rachel Gartner (Heidi Silberman) should be helped to join her dead husband or not.

She says she has nothing to live for after years of a happy marriage. She is not ill. She just does not want to continue. And the audience is told they hold her fate in their hands.

The debate is courtroom style, presided over genially by Jay James Moody as the unnamed Chair. Gartner is supported by counsel Biegler (Alana Denham Preston), a sharp and shrewd young woman. She is opposed by Dr Keller (Maxine Beaumont), equally sharp and shrewd. 

The witnesses include passionate pro-choice Professor Litten (Helen McFarlane) but also Dr Sperling (Timmy Sekuless) who is not very keen on permitting doctors to administer lethal doses. And Bishop Thiel (Richard Manning) is there to provide the powerful objections of organised religion. 

It’s all highly compelling, done with a style that is one minute the realism of the courtroom, at another surreal. A high blue set with high backlit windows surrounds the players, clinical and austere. Occasionally there is the quality of a nightmare, then there’s a return to the steadiness of a court.

At the end the audience is invited to come forward to the stage and record their votes. The air is suddenly heavy with the weight of individual decisions and the burden of democracy.

At a point in time when the ACT has just made this choice possible on medical grounds this is a timely production. Von Schirach’s play takes the debate one step further – Rachel is not sick but her purpose in life is gone and she wants to die. On opening night the audience voted to give her that choice.