How to talk about death with your parents.
How Do I Let You Die? by Hmong-Australian writer, Michele Lee, is a somewhat autobiographical tale of Hmong parents, death and ghosts.
From February 2020, during the bushfires and pandemic, Lee would call from Melbourne to connect with her parents in Canberra for 30 minutes each day.
Lee recorded the conversations with her parents as she sought to reconcile vast emotional, cultural and geographical distances.
“I wanted to understand the Hmong perspective on death and what my parents have endured in Australia and Laos. How do I let my parents die on their terms?” explained Lee.
Hmong people have animist beliefs about the porousness between life and death – spirits are real and funerals re-unite souls with their original home.
Led by a team of Asian-Australian artists, including multiple Hmong creatives, How Do I Let You Die? is a multimedia monologue that weaves together phone calls, Asian ghost tropes, Hmong horror stories and an adult child accepting the eventual death of their parents.
As crisis brings mortality achingly close, this charming and tender theatre work offers moments of humour and nuance as well as moments of contradiction and wonder about approaches to this life and the next.
Arts House Co-Artistic Directors, Emily Sexton and Nithya Nagarajan, say How Do I Let You Die? is a touching tribute to ageing told through the raucous words and witty humour of Michele Lee.
“This new work brings together some of the best Asian-Australian talent in the country. We are thrilled to amplify the voices of artists who negotiate what it means to live and die in Australia through the cultural lens of ceremonial practice,” said Sexton and Nagarajan.
