How I Didn't Kill My Father And How Much I Regret It

First there was a book in a form of diary, in which Mateusz Pakuła described ex post the story of the dying process of his father. This was an extremely moving story, an intimate confession of love, grief and rage that you could do nothing to shorten a dying man’s suffering. However, one of the most interesting Polish playwrights and original directors decided not to close the story but to test it on stage. He wrote it for five actors and they gave it a new, unexpected dimension.

This is a personal story about the dying process of his father who suffered from pancreatric cancer, but also a story of helplessness and rage at the institutions, the health service and the Church that inflict additional suffering on the sick. The „co-dying” that Mateusz Pakuła writes about is not an isolated experience. Thousands of people across Poland who cannot decide their own fate and whose loved ones’ rights are restricted, have to cope with helplessness, rage and anger. It is a cry for euthanasia in the moments of transcending suffering. But if you think what you are going to see on stage is no more than a sad story you are wrong, because the play will not shy away from from the grotesque and comedy.

„<<How I Didn’t Kill My Father And How Much I Regret It>> is a detailed relation of a Polish dying process. Very personal, individual and full of details only the close family of the dying father can tell; at the same time a universal one because it contains elements that are well known to everybody in Poland who had to fight with terminal illness – visits in hospitals, in terminal wards, which are connected not only with fear and helplessness but also humiliation and eventually seeking help beyond the unhospitable and inefficient system. Fear for the sick, breaking numerous barriers in facing a biological side of humanity, constant attempts to relieve pain and facing not only the perspective of death but first of all senseless torment of dying”, wrote Aneta Kyzioł in „Polityka” weekly.