Victor Esses' THE DEATH & LIFE OF ALL OF US is Coming to London's Camden People's Theatre

Charming, funny & moving multimedia story of intergenerational shame, family secrets & history coming to Camden People's Theatre 2-13 April

Victor Esses' The Death & Life of All of Us sold out dates at Soho Theatre and was a hit with audiences and critics at the 2023 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. It is now set for a two-week April run at London's Camden People's Theatre. It is the opening show for CPT's Spring Season and can be seen from 2-6, April at 7.15pm and 9-13 April at 9pm.

At 19, whilst studying film, Victor found his long-lost great aunt Marcelle in Rome. She had moved from Lebanon to Italy and converted from Judaism to Christianity, changed her name and kept a secret for a lifetime. Inspired by her strength and her rebellion he started to make a documentary about her life. Twenty years later, he still hasn't finished it...

Having grappled with her story for so long, with the benefit of hindsight and his own maturity, he now feels ready to do that story justice. The Death & Life of All of Us uses the interviews he recorded with Marcelle alongside art projections, text, live music and movement. It is a multimedia piece looking into intergenerational shame, family secrets, history and what's left when we're gone. In this moving performance Victor loves Marcelle but doesn't always like her...

The show also takes in Victor's acceptance of his queerness, getting past the toxic shame that is handed down to us through the generations. It incorporates stories of those who are represented in his own identity (queer, migrant, Jew, Middle Eastern, Latin American and other) yet often hidden in society. People seen as different, making their unique personal stories completely universal and relatable to our own lives. Esses aims to rewrite history in his own terms and encourage the audience to access their own pasts to do the same.

Victor invites the audience into his poetic, intimate, subtle and warm space that is absorbing and comfortable yet contains moments of gut-punching revelation. He said 'I want the show to invite audiences to understand how, in a world with so much migration, rising antisemitism, xenophobia and queerphobia, we can all meet together to celebrate that we are all unique and complex, wonderful and awful. To be human is to be multifaceted and often intersectional'.

The Death & Life of All of Us combines intimate storytelling, text, Victor's documentary footage and live music from multi-instrumentalist Enrico Aurigemma. The art installation backdrop was created by co-director and visual artist Yorgos Petrou and choreography devised by movement director and performance artist Jennifer Jackson.

Victor Esses is a Jewish-Lebanese Latinx queer theatre maker, performance artist and writer. His practice centres nuanced intersectional auto/biographical stories of belonging, resilience and intimacy, encouraging audiences to ask questions about what makes us most human. www.victoresses.com

The Death & Life of All of Us is supported by Arts Council England with seed commissioning by Camden People's Theatre. Supported by The Lowry, Shoreditch Town Hall, Harlow Playhouse, JW3, Manchester Jewish Museum and Soho Theatre.

The Death & Life of All of Us will undertake further UK dates later in 2024.

The Death & Life of All of Us by Victor Esses

Moving, poignant and charming exploration of intergenerational shame, family secrets, history and what's left when we're gone from Latinx, queer, Jewish-Lebanese theatre maker and performance artist.

2-6, April 7.15pm

9-13 April 9pm
London

Camden People's Theatre, 58-60 Hampstead Rd, NW1 2PY

£15/£8 concs https://cptheatre.co.uk/whatson/The-Death-and-Life-of-All-of-Us 020 7419 4841

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