I Can Die Too

Show & Culture

Jean Cocteau died on the same day as Édith Piaf, in September 1963. On hearing the news, he reportedly said, “La Piaf est morte. Je peux mourir aussi” – and did, hours later. It is a story of life imitating art with fatal precision, and the ideal starting point for this sharp, self-aware new work by Frances Ruffelle, Sally George, and the mercurial Alan Cumming. Set during a chaotic tech rehearsal, I Can Die Too watches its leading actress, Lily, attempt to perform a play inspired by Cocteau’s La Voix Humaine, the 1930 monodrama of a woman unravelling in a telephone call to her departing lover. The trouble is, the role mirrors her own life too closely for comfort, and the parallels keep multiplying. As the rehearsal spirals, Lily abandons the script, confronts her ghosts, and surrenders to the only honest outlet available: song. Part concert, part tragicomedy, part theatrical deconstruction, director Bill Buckhurst frames the breakdown of performance as a space where something truer can emerge. Ruffelle (Tony Award winner as Éponine in the original Broadway production of Les Misérables and the UK's Eurovision representative in 1994) performs the role herself, bringing an unmistakable personal charge to a work she co-created. Funny, raw, and formally playful, this first co-production between Pitlochry Festival Theatre and the Théâtres de la Ville asks what survives when the pretending stops.