Ten Ways To Die Happy ★★★★

Ten Ways to Die Happy is an engaging interactive game show that poses an intriguing question: If you could go back in time and relive your life, would you use your energy the exact same way?

It’s a query very much worthy of contemplation, and this unique production, created by Emanuele Aldrovandi and Jacopo Giacomoni, has now been translated to English after touring Italy for two years. So Fringegoers who want to examine their life choices — and perhaps make some new ones — your opportunity has arrived.

Eight audience members are chosen at random, and those who accept step on stage, choose a new name and a quality — beauty, intelligence, creativity, among them — and begin their new life. They each receive flowers that represent their energy, and for each biological year, one is spent. Additional flowers are thrown into a for events that take a bit more life force than they should; think death of a loved one, professional disappointments, or Crash winning the Academy Award for Best Picture over Brokeback Mountain. The flowers are precious; when the flowers are gone, so is that person’s life.

The audience members who are not chosen to relive their lives are not left passively sitting in the dark. They are the rest of humanity, and they are constantly asked to vote on elements that will change a person’s life for better or worse. (Helpful hint: If you’re selected, smile and be as pleasant and charming as you can muster, because if not, the rest of humanity might turn against you like Miranda Priestly in a mood.)

In theory, the game’s goal is simple: die happy. As people come and go, the show could do with a bigger surprise or change-up at some random point to boost the proceedings, but Perla Ambrosini, the ethereal hostess, does a fantastic job keeping things moving along as the death count rises, and overall the show succeeds in making you wonder what you would do differently if you could do it all over again.