Combining theatre, dialogue, essay, video, music and dance, The Damage Is Done: A True Story sees renowned Vancouver author, thinker and speaker Dr. Gabor Maté performing, onstage for the first time, with Calgary actor, writer, director and therapist Rita Bozi.
Playing themselves, Maté and Bozi use their own historical and family traumas – Maté was an infant living in Budapest when the Nazis invaded; Bozi’s family took part in the 1965 Hungarian Revolution – to explore with humour and compassion how these experiences impacted their mental health, and how they continue to haunt them today.
Through their stories, The Damage Is Done captures the challenges of child-rearing in traumatic times as well as the difficulties many people face when immigrating to Canada; with music spanning Neil Young, The Velvet Underground, Franz Liszt, Richard Strauss, a Canadian Hungarian punk rocker named BB Gabor, and the infamous song “Gloomy Sunday” which set off a rash of suicides across Hungary in the 1930s.
Running Oct. 20-24 at 8pm at the Historic Theatre at The Cultch (1895 Venables), followed by a post-show Q&A each night. Tickets from $20 at 604-251-1363 or Tickets.thecultch.com.
