The Unicorn’s Casey and Diana finds spectacle in end-of-life seclusion
Photo by Don Ipock
In October of 1991, Princess Diana visited the pioneering HIV/AIDS hospice Casey House in Toronto and shook the hand of a man living with HIV. After the media left, she reportedly spent time with all twelve or so Casey House residents and its staff, and her lack of fear in touching an HIV/AIDS patient without gloves was enormously influential in challenging stigma about the disease. It would become a regular fixture for The People’s Princess to make time for education and compassion around this cause until her death in 1997—permanently cementing her advocacy in the era, at a time when few celebrities would lend their name and attention to association with the epidemic.
Nick Green’s play, Casey and Diana, uses the single-day Canadian visitation as a centerpiece for a tale both deeply personal and equally universal.
Our lead character, Thomas (Ernie Nolan), is a recurring fixture of Casey House. Despite its status as a Hospice, Thomas has managed to outlive all of his previous roommates and even spent extended time back in the world before returning worse for the wear. He’s attempting to welcome his vulnerable and angst-ridden young roommate, Andre (Darrington Clark), who is struggling to make sense of everything from his HIV symptoms to how he is supposed to fill his final days. Their nurse, Vera (Chioma Anyanwu), keeps the house in order by maintaining straightforward medical and emotionally disconnected end-of-life care, while new volunteer Majorie (Jan Rogge) is so desperate for spiritual entanglement with these dying men that her need betrays some deeper purpose.
Photo by Don Ipock
These two patients and two staff members are blindsided by the news that Princess Diana will be coming to visit their small facility in exactly one week. The historic visit is not received by those on the ground with the reverence it would gain in the future, as the busy business of life-and-death is the primary focus. Except for Thomas. For Princess Di superfan Thomas, this is the center of the universe.
Nolan’s take on the character is beautiful, triumphant, and utterly, undeniably broken, right down to the core. Thomas’ huge, brash personality is the near-cartoonish confidence of a man who has known death, internally and externally, and has laughed in its face enough times to know that he is either immortal or inescapably next in line—dancing a jig on borrowed time and refusing to surrender an iota of his humanity before it is pulled from his cold, dead hands. The Christmas morning jubilation of knowing that an idol (whose wedding he has memorized from constant rewatches) will be visiting him personally… it quickly wears of when confronted with the week of waiting. Now that Thomas has something worth living for it, of course, comes with a ticking clock. That tick-tock is louder in his head than any period in the years of pain and illness he’s endured to make it this far. The stress, fear, and possibility combine to accelerate deterioration, so each effort toward celebration soon crumbles under the weight.
Princess Di herself (who appears here in certain forms, performed in restrained perfection by Leah Dalrymple) serves as a mirror throughline for our protagonists in a manner that truly detaches all celebrity from a titular character, and works her as a machine for diving deeper into the flaws and functions of someone who will not overcome their struggles. It’s a fascinating compliment piece to Unicorn’s recent The JonBenét Game, where again the narrative’s spotlight shines on someone for whom no books will be written, instead of a woman whose life launched a thousand docu-dramas.
Pauline (Cinnamon Schultz) is Thomas’ sister and re-enters his life late in the show, after having spent several years with no contact—lacking an understanding of his illness and perplexed into submission by fear. Thomas worries her intentions are simply about meeting the princess, and thereby the trust needed to repair a family is thrown into the same ticking time bomb as Thomas’ own health. Elsewhere, Andre is being pulled back into a more hopeful reality by Majorie, who Vera must eventually chastise for her oversteps. The point of Casey House is to help people die, not to convince them that they might magically live again or recover. It’s the hope that kills you.
Diana, immortalized in the media as a symbol of hope, here serves a function less healing and more distracting. The opportunity for many of these characters to find what they need could be dashed by the sudden interjection of a prominent, famous figure, taking the oxygen out of the room, and forcing a conclusion to some stories where their time might not have been so inevitably framed.
Unicorn’s production does a stellar job with the Casey House, where we set our scene. Transitions into more hectic realities or more intimate moments come and go with slight tweaks to a finely tuned set and lighting. At a two-hour-plus runtime, the show would normally be a drama that I thought had overstayed its welcome, but the time dedicated means that the script and cast are able to fully flesh out every character into a full, complicated, messy human being. That Thomas has a sister who he hasn’t spoken with… this plot arrives so late in the show that it would’ve been an easy cut, except for Schultz oblitering a monologue that made the whole thing worth it. Clark’s Andre is as chaotic and lost as an animal in a trap can be, and Rogge’s Majorie, offering a distracting, muddled, toxic positivity, takes the dire situation of a hospice and inadvertently borders it like a warzone. Anyanwu’s Vera and Dalrymple’s Princess Di are given the least to do, but both take on archetypes that would’ve felt one-note in lesser hands and find compelling, divergent paths.
Casey & Diana runs through Feb 15, 2026 at the Unicorn Theatre’s Jerome Stage. Tickets are here.
Photo by Don Ipock
