Interview with Su Squire
Bringing death to a theatre near you.
Su Squire is a storyteller, writer, performer and facilitator who creates theatrical pieces that sensitively challenge what it is to be mortal.
The Off the Twig theatre company produces works to inspire conversation and heartfelt community connection around themes of death and grief with the aim of making the most of life.
Mixing first person stories gathered from honest one to one conversations with audience participation and visual funeral preparations, isn’t your average advertising hook, yet Su’s work is enthralling audiences across the country.
End of the Road Show
Off the Twig’s recent performance of The End of The Road Show as our guest and as part of Dying Matters Awareness Week, is now having impact on a national scale.
“It wasn’t the kind of theatrical performance many people might choose, yet The End Of The Road Show was so beautiful, funny, uplifting, moving, dramatic, poetic and true, I wish everybody could see it.”
Bel Mooney - Daily Mail
It even captured the attention of a national newspaper columnist and in our post event survey increased the percentage of people who had considered discussing their end of life wishes with their loved ones from 20% to 90%.
Perhaps more inspiring were the comments that explained the rationale for this change in attitude:
“To make things easier for them and to stop them worrying about end of life – I won’t worry; I don’t want them to. It happens to us all. We just want it to be as good as it possibly can be.”
“The performance prompted me to want to put my wishes in writing and not postpone conversations with loved ones.”
“Life is short and talking about what they and we want at the end is important.”
“Losing our son to cancer was so hard, but he had fully expressed his wishes to us which made all the arrangements for his death and funeral so much easier to deal with, as we were following his direction and respecting his wishes.
Not all of us will have the ‘time’ outside of a terminal diagnosis, our own death may be sudden and unexpected, so the importance of sharing our wishes with those we love is crucial, and my husband and I have already set aside time this coming weekend to share our thoughts with each other.
Our son died 4 years ago… and although both of us have given thought privately to our own death, we have not shared with each other. My feeling is that one huge loss within our family has already been too much and the thought of another deep loss has been too much to consider. But consider we must.”
So, what is Su’s story? Why and when did she decide to create a theatrical piece that challenges audiences to confront their own mortality and pushes the social taboo of death right up the agenda?
Watch Su’s interview…
To listen to the End of the Road Show’s first person stories, click the button below to visit Off the Twigs’s Tree of Life & Death.
Su Squire’s Poetry
-
Blessed are the tears of the mothers who cry
That water the earth so cracked and so dry
The tears that they cry for their joys and their sorrows
For the days that have passed, for today and tomorrow
Tears of laughter and longing, of bursting with pride
Tears that are shared and those hidden inside
Tears of grief and regret for the things that they’ve seen
And the emptiness for what could never have been
Across generations, in tribes and alone
In their village of birth and far from their home
They cry tears for the dying, for the wonder of birth
Tears for themselves and for our Mother Earth
The tears of our mothers, of yours and of mine
Tears pouring forth from the goddess divine
Tears falling as raindrops from out of the sky
Quenching the earth so cracked and so dry
And we welcome these tears as they fall on the dust
So that life can burst forth as truly it must
These tears are a song of the heart and the soul
Restoring the Earth and making things whole
-
What if the secret of life was death?
What if, instead of fearfully brushing our mortality under the carpet
We held it up to the light, beheld it in all of its fragile glory?
Reveling in the wonder of our even being here at all
What if, one day, we all woke up and decided that life’s impermanence
Was what made it precious
What if we thought of it as a holiday
Pouring our energy into relishing every moment
Everything that reminds us we’re alive
Living fully
Being present
Being here
Instead of preoccupying ourselves
In extending our stay at any cost
What if when the time came to catch that plane home
We could collapse back into our seat
Let out a contented sigh and say
‘Damn that was good!’
What if all of our sleep-labours in pursuit of forever
Are poisoning the fleeting beauty of the finite life we have been gifted?
What if one day we allowed the years and years and tears
Of our accumulated grief to flow
Abandoning social convention
And upper lip stiffening
And allowed it to pour forth
Like so much healing rain upon the earth, scarred and scorched
by centuries of amnesia
What if we all collectively remembered the state of grace
That exists in the embracing and cherishing of all that is finite
To know
That we too shall pass
That our flesh and bones will return to the earth
And the song that we chose to sing
Will live on through the tongues and in the hearts of others
What if the secret of life was death?
What if this could set us free?
Su Squire
May 2019
-
It’s 1am when the news comes
It’s over
He has gone where I cannot followClotho spins the thread of life Lachesis measures it
Atropos, with her terrible shears, cuts it.
The cut threads fall upon the cold earth like rain
My beloved lays upon the cold earthSpin
Measure
Cut
FallI hear the sound of my heart breaking
The sound of the fabric of my existence being ripped apart
I feel myself falling
I fall through days and nights of weeping
Cocooning myself in his clothes Fearing the coming of dawn
A love that borders on madness.I keep falling
Through drunken nights
Howling in the dark
The look in his eyes
Feeling my heart beat so fast
That I long for it to burst from my chest.I keep falling
Through messages of sympathy
Paper work and funeral plans
Thank god for his funeral
For the songs and the stories
For the kids dressed in top hats and fairy wings
Riding on the wagon that carried his coffin
Thank god for all of us holding each other
Thank god for the ginI am in free fall
One thousand…
Two thousand…
Three thousand…
Four thousand...I am in free fall
And I don't want to reach for the cord.Five thousand...
I am in free fall
Friends and family are worried
They think I am going mad
I think I am falling in love
The depth of my sorrow is the depth of my love
And I don't want to stopSix thousand...
I am in free fall
I am Alice falling down the rabbit hole
I am crying my heart out
I am swimming in a lake of my own tears.Seven thousand...
Am I falling or am I letting go?
I am undone by this grief
I wonder if I will fall foreverOne thousand…
Two thousand…
Three thousand…
Four thousand…
Five thousand…
Six thousand…
Seven thousand…And then…
Something catches me
Something greater than sorrow
Something vast
Something ancient
Something woven from shining silver thread
Something hopeful…And in this moment
The sun rises
Kisses my face
And a warm breeze sings through the trees
A song that calls me back to life
Su SquireOctober 2007
-
We remember you
Beloved sister, brother, father, mother
Daughter, Son
Elder, friend, ancestor
Two-legged and four-legged companions
Furred and feathered
We remember you
And all that we shared together
Moments in time held gently forever
In the places and spaces
Where we carefully stow our precious treasure
Our memories of you
We remember you
As the year turns
Marking birthdays and anniversaries
With small rituals to draw you close
To bring comfort to tender hearts
We remember you
As the year turns
In the sweet smell of spring blossom
The warmth of summer sun upon our faces
The golden leaves of autumn
And the shining silver of winter frost
We remember you
In the light reflected on the water
In the breeze that shakes the leaves to sing
In the warm glow of the fire
And the smell of the rich soil
Reminding us that all that once was returns to the earth
And that tender green shoots of re-birth will emerge in time
We remember you
In the stories shared
By those of us left behind
Each tale filling in the gaps
With our tears and our laughter
We remember you in the things you loved…
That piece of music
Your signature dish
The poem you knew by heart
The flowers in your garden
We remember you in too many of the small things of life to mention
We remember you in the quiet times
And the unexpected moments
We remember you
Always
Su Squire
October 2021
-
In the world between worlds
I waited for you
Threw open the windows
To let in the air
To clear the shadows from the corners
In that space between places
I saw you stepping off the train
With a key in your hand
And I followed you through the streets
But you were destined for another place
So I will stay here
In the house of the living
While you tend the fire
In the hearth of our eternal home
I am here
You are there
And time is nothing
In the vast story of all things
Su Squire
November 2007
