From April 8 to 18, Club Sandwich Mayonnaise ran at USINE C, a modern venue well suited to a documentary theatre piece tackling the issue of medical assistance in dying (MAID).
Created by Porte Parole, the work revisits playwright Manuelle Légaré’s experience of her father’s medically assisted death following a cancer relapse.
While rooted in lived experience, the piece also draws on a series of interviews Légaré conducted with clinicians, policymakers, and patients, as she sought to understand how Quebec came to be seen as a MAID “world champion.” By 2023-2024, the practice accounted for 7.3 percent of deaths in the province, a sharp rise from less than one percent a decade earlier.
At the centre of the play is Légaré herself, a self-described “TV girl” whose background lies in talk show and documentary production. Pacing the perimeter of the stage, she circles the action, narrating and revisiting her past, while Alice Pascual embodies her with striking resemblance.
Sylvie De Morais-Nogueira and Martin-David Peters take on the remaining roles, among them Légaré’s father, Pierre Légaré, a woman with multiple sclerosis, and a range of experts including former politician Véronique Hivon and geriatrician David Lussier. Their transformations are swift and precise.
Légaré’s consistent presence both as witness and subject, in contrast, reinforces the idea that Club sandwich mayonnaise remains firmly anchored in her perspective.
Director François Bernier opts for pared-down staging: a hospital bed, a monitor, and a few chairs on a dark stage washed in white light. This minimalism keeps the focus on the story’s emotional weight and the steady flow of statistics and opinions presented, while also heightening the production’s symbolic dimension.
The hospital bed, first introduced as the site of Pierre Légaré’s death, is repurposed throughout the play, serving even as a dinner table and office desk. This recurrence emphasizes how the playwright’s distressing hospital experience remains inseparable from her inquiry into MAID. Confronted with the shock of her father’s abrupt decision, Légaré had only a few hours to coordinate the logistics of his death.
The structure, shaped by dramaturg Mathieu Gosselin, repeatedly returns to this period through abrupt shifts in time: four minutes before, fifteen years earlier, six months later. This fragmented chronology can feel disorienting, particularly as it extends into the play’s documentary-style sections. Yet, it effectively mirrors flashes of memory, privileging lived experience over linear argument.
A compelling driver of public debate, Club Sandwich Mayonnaise brings a deeply personal experience of grief through MAID. In keeping with Porte Parole’s dialogue-building ethos, post-show discussions featuring rotating experts on stage and audience members offer perspectives that complement, complicate, and at times challenge the playwright’s own.
The production is scheduled to tour across Quebec.
