Suicide prevention theme of new play

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When the cast of Azimuth Theatre's The Day Billy Lived sets out on its three month tour, one of its members will be bringing along a wealth of personal experience. However, because the play deals with the issues surrounding suicide, it is a knowledge that Irvin Munroe would be happy to be without.

"I lost my father through suicide in 1968," said Munroe. "He was 32 years old and I was 13." Charles Eldon Munroe was a railway foreman in Manitoba for 15 years and his suicide has had a lasting impact on his son, now 42.

His father's legacy is one of the main reasons Munroe wanted to be in the play.

"My father never had any help. There was nothing like that in our community. If I can help reach out and increase awareness about suicide prevention, then maybe it doesn't have to be like that."

Munroe, a member of the Cote Band of the Saulteaux Nation outside of Kamsack, Sask., was a long time coming to his determination.

"I held off a lot of years before confronting it," he said. "I wondered if he died in vain. Today, I don't believe he did."

This belief was not arrived at easily.

"I started my healing journey in 1983," Munroe said. "It involved changing my attitude and behavior. I made a decision to help people, to get involved with promoting positive change." Initially, this meant working in alcohol and drug abuse treatment centres and it eventually took Munroe to Vancouver where he enrolled in high school upgrading courses at Vancouver Community College two years ago.

One of the courses included a role playing exercise dealing with time management and it was this experience that got Munroe hooked on acting. He signed up for a one-year acting program at the Vancouver Film School and has worked as an extra and acted in some student films.

Munroe's love of acting, and his desire to help people, make him a perfect match for Edmonton's Azimuth Theatre. The company was formed in 1987 with a mandate to create and perform plays that "promote social change."

In the fall of 1995, after surveying teachers, principals, representatives from correctional institutions, and people working in the fields of family violence and suicide prevention, Azimuth called for submissions of scripts. The following summer, The Day Billy Lived by Christopher Craddock was selected for production.

Billy is a teenager who attempts suicide only to find himself transported to a world between life and death where he must confront his decision. Munroe's character plays a kind of bureaucrat who must process Billy's "application for termination." Part of the attraction of the script is its use of humor and pop culture references.

Sophie Lees, the play's director, feels these elements are critical to the play's success.

"Humor allows for recognition and it creates a certain safety for the audience," she said. "You're able to recognize your fellow human when a play appeals to you. It allows the audience to engage." This is particularly important because most performances are at junior and senior high schools for teenaged audiences and "you don't want them throwing tomatoes," Lees adds jokingly.

In addition to directing the play, Lees serves as Azimuth's artistic director and she has been involved with the current project from the beginning. After deciding on a script, Azimuth performed it for an audience of suicide prevention workers, teenagers and members of the local theatre community.

"At first, each group was kind of defensive," said Lees. "They each had a unique take on the script, but eventually there was an amazing connection. We realized we all wanted the same result, we just had different ways of getting there."

The workshops resulting in a new draft of the script and the result, Lees said, is "a wonderful tool for dealing with the issues surrounding suicide."

The next step was casting the play and Lees looked for actors "with the intelligence and integrity to deal with the issue in an open way." Lees wanted actors who were engaging an could deal with the issue with a certain ambiguity, because it is important not to shut out any members of the audience.

"I think the most important thing to accomplish is to break the myth that suicide shouldn't be talked about and to offer support for people feeling suicidal or dealing with loss. We're just one small part in the process of a community dealing with the issue."

Part of the process is a post-performance discussion of the issues and topics raised in the play and it is just as important as the play itself. There will be local suicide prevention experts involved in these discussions.

The play will tour British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan from February until mid-May and Munroe is looking forward to it.

"I've been chomping at the bit since November," he said. "There is a great need for this play. I've had nothing but encouragement from people I've told about it and I'm really happy that there are Native and non-Natives working together on it because we all need each other to work this out."