At Any Cost?

Overview

At Any Cost?, the latest production from acclaimed Australian playwright David Williamson (Don's Party), tackles the emotive and controversial topic of euthanasia. The practice is illegal in most countries, yet I think the majority of us would agree that there are times when prolonging a person's life just because we can actually means just prolonging their suffering.

The play centres around a family in a hospital waiting room, the mother lying gravely ill in intensive care. The question on everyone's minds is whether the time has come to let nature take its course, given the seriousness of her condition and the likely extremely poor quality of the life she would have, should she survive. For the husband, Des (Martin Vaughan), there is no doubt in his mind: He will not let go of the woman he loves, and for whom he has also been caring these last few years since she suffered a debilitating stroke.

The children — Megan (Tracy Mann), Katie (Kate Raison) and Max (Tyler Coppin) — are able to evaluate the situation a little more rationally than their father. The tension is augmented as the duty doctor, Dr Sharif (Daniel Mitchell), drops by frequently to keep the family updated, gently suggesting the alternative of ceasing treatment. Family dynamics soon begin to come to the fore as skeletons are pulled out of closets and bombshells dropped, and it descends into a quite intense family drama.

Dr Sharif is also used as a device between scenes, to distance the audience from the emotion being displayed on stage. As he lectures an imaginary class of medical students (us, the audience), he dryly hands out facts and figures around the cost of care, such as that it requires $50,000 dollars to keep someone alive in intensive care for a week and pointing out to us that "we offer care because we can, but seldom ask if we should."

The acting throughout is superb on all counts and it is a very enjoyable play, both moving and served with a decent side of comedy. The interludes from Dr Sharif are thought-provoking and often funny, if a little shocking at times, making us think about the realities of keeping people alive long beyond their "use by date". However, overall, it possibly focuses a little too heavily on the family drama playing out in the waiting room at the expense of the subject at hand, euthanasia, thus rendering its didactic potential less powerful.