I don’t think I have heard such a diversity of post-show opinion as on opening night of Dying: A Memoir. “Not theatre.” “Predictable.” A retired palliative-care nurse said it “hit home.”

It seems any review of this adaptation of Australian author Cory Taylor’s final work must be a little more subjective than usual.

As someone who fleetingly thinks about death from time to time, with each friend or family member’s passing, and each middle-aged niggle reminding me of my mortality, I found Dying: A Memoir an engaging, welcome opportunity to consider life’s inevitable end more deeply. To confront that frankly scary thing we rarely if ever talk about, through the profound and funny insights of someone forced to confront death when she was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Genevieve Morris in Dying: A Memoir. Photo © Pia Johnson

Benjamin Law’s adaptation of his late friend’s memoir is sensitively directed by Jean Tong for MTC’s world premiere. On the spartan Fairfax Studio stage, Genevieve Morris plays Taylor with a down-to-earth sensitivity and humour. She also briefly interprets several characters Taylor encountered during her decade-long shuffle off this mortal coil.

A matter-of-fact doctor, for example. Her mother ailing in a nursing home, warm-hearted sister and passive-aggressive brother. Seriously ill people gathering to talk about how they want to go, at a time before voluntary assisted dying was legal in Australia. Through vocal and physical shifts, she makes each one distinct and often charmingly funny.

Fairly harmlessly stumbling over words a few times during this 75-minute monologue, Morris also interjects between two pre-recorded voices at a writer’s festival panel. She briefly, silently interacts with the stagehand of that reimagined event and the actual play, and a disembodied hand delivering mail.

There’s interaction with the audience too, starting with the actor emerging from behind us for some cheery introductory words before Dying: A Memoir formally begins. Occasional breaking of the fourth wall follows, culminating in a few minutes of spoken audience participation.

This is the point where opinions may diverge most. That the connection between audience, actor and the writer who died in 2016 is strongest. That the spell is broken. That Dying: A Memoir is not theatre.

Genevieve Morris in Dying: A Memoir. Photo © Pia Johnson

Law has certainly crafted something that is approachable, with clear language and structure that includes a brief shift back in time to a cyclone during Taylor’s childhood in Fiji.

Lightning appears as backlit jagged slashes in the plain black walls of James Lew’s set. This most striking element of Rachel Lee’s otherwise warm lighting design remains after we move forward in time again, suggesting existential cracks.

Looking closer we see they recall the shards of blue-and-white pottery found in a river in Arita, Japan, that Morris described earlier. We learn that Taylor and her ceramic-artist Japanese husband lived part-time in this town long renowned for traditional pottery.

It’s a gently touching feature of a set that’s otherwise just several red theatre-style seats on castors. Morris occasionally reconfigures them to create locations such as a plane, doctor’s waiting room or gathering spaces for conversations.

Composer and sound designer Darius Kedros shows the same very effective restraint he brought to the Fairfax Studio in September for another one-woman show: The Lark, starring Noni Hazlehurst. He enhances our sense of place and mood with realistic sounds, subtly done with the exception of that violent lightning.

Among the written insights MTC offers for this play are those of nephrologist Dr Adam Steinberg. He concludes: “I invite you to sit with the discomfort of mortality, and to listen to stories like Cory’s that challenge us to consider what it means to ‘die well’ and to truly live.”

I for one welcome Dying: A Memoir’s invitation. It’s a slightly different kind of theatre, which tells its story with honesty, humour and heart.

Dying: A Memoir plays in the Fairfax Studio, Arts Centre Melbourne, until 29 November.