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EVERY BRILLIANT THING By Duncan Macmillan with Jonny Donahoe Belvoir presents EVERY BRILLIANT THING By Duncan Macmillan With with Jonny Donahoe Kate Mulvany Directed by Kate Champion Every Brilliant Thing Co-Directed by Steve Rodgers is supported by The Nelson Meers This production of Every Brilliant Thing Foundation opened at Belvoir St Theatre on Wednesday 13 March 2019. Set and Costume Designer Isabel Hudson Lighting Designer Amelia Lever-Davidson Sound Designer Steve Francis Stage Manager Isabella Kerdijk If Every Brilliant Thing has raised any concerns for you following the performance, Lifeline offers a 24 hour counselling service and can be reached at 13 11 14. Additional information can be found on their website, lifeline.org.au. Other services which may be of assistance include mental health advocacy organisation, Beyond Blue (beyondblue.org.au, 1300 224 636), and youth mental health foundation, Headspace (headspace.org.au). We also advise speaking to a trusted source or engaging your local GP. We acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora nation who are the traditional custodians of the land on which Belvoir St Theatre is built. We also pay respect to the Elders past and present, and all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. PRODUCTION THANKS PHOTOGRAPHY Nathan Weyers and NJW Designs Daniel Boud, Michael Kennedy, Jack Saltmiras DESIGN Alphabet Studio 03 Kate Mulvany DIRECTORS' NOTE KATE CHAMPION & STEVE RODGERS Almost all of us have had some The lengthy conversations we’ve experience of living with mental shared in the rehearsal room health issues, whether it be first hand together have deeply informed our or through a loved one or friend. It is interpretation of the piece. The gift of a recognisable part of being alive and the show is that it is never the same human. Yet we rarely treat it as such twice yet at its heart never wavers a common occurrence. We give our from its purpose. failing bodies far more press than we Through a personal account we give our fragile minds. are encouraged to be personally Every Brilliant Thing takes this accountable. subject and gently yet firmly, with The list of every brilliant thing is also pathos and humour, guides us to a certainly not given as a solution yet place where we can see it for what it stands as a beautiful and heartfelt it is - something to be unashamedly offering by a seven year old to a spoken about within the communities situation that can’t be easily be we live in. remedied. Every Brilliant Thing is almost not a Sometimes the seven year old in us play. Its form is stripped down to the is surprisingly wise. essentials which allows the simple act of communion with others to define its nature and ultimate purpose. It doesn’t aim to give simple solutions or feel good remedies but instead suggests we deeply consider how we talk about suicide, how we treat the loved ones of someone who has died by suicide, and how the media reports on it. 05 Kate Mulvany & Kate Champion spread wide in glorious mirth. I loved friends and loved ones and strangers that PERFORMER'S NOTE this man. listened as I spoke; and shared their own memories, thoughts and experiences with Mark also had a mental illness. He often me. These people truly saved me. KATE MULVANY lived with the darkest of shadows within. Anxious voices whispered to The thing is, talking about suicide; talking him constantly. Utter despair often about mental illness; checking in on each Ten years ago, I lost my partner to suicide. malevolent bullshit. A dangerously consumed him, made him disappear for other; acknowledging the darkness, one-sided conversation. His name was Mark. He was my best mate. days on end. He was a force of nature, along with all the light - that’s the most My soul mate. My ally. My everything. The only thing that kept me going, but sometimes the force was too great, important part of understanding our ironically, was Mark. His truth. His legacy. too powerful. This was part of Mark. humanity. Of creating a loving community His death ripped my world apart. Ripped The fact that despite his death at the This was another element of who he was. of empathy and compassion. Of taking a lot of people’s worlds apart. age of 32, he led a simply remarkable This was still the man I loved dearly. care of ourselves and each other. Of healing, of asking for help, of offering The maelstrom of emotion, heartache, life. He was a beautiful human being – When Mark died, these were the things – assistance. It doesn’t bring back the trauma and grief that came from Mark’s ridiculously funny. Mind-blowingly smart. the light and the shadows, the opposing person we have lost. But it may help stop suicide was almost unbearable. Almost Caramel-hearted. Wicked in the best of forces within – that I wanted to talk losing someone else. unlivable. Along with the traumatic ways. He loved stray cats and singing about. I wanted more of that human who self-questioning that comes from losing musical numbers at the top of his lungs was no longer in the world. I wanted to So when this play was put in my hands, a loved one to suicide, I had the added and farts and astrophysics and the hear stories I hadn’t been told. I wanted it took my breath away. Here was prodding and poking from a press, babies of friends. He was brilliant at his to sit at someone’s feet and hear about everything I’d ever wanted - an honest, impatient for information. (Mark was work, generous beyond belief, filled to my beloved best friend, and about communal conversation between friends a well-known actor, therefore certain the brim with love and pride for others. others like him. I wanted to talk and talk and strangers on mental health. With no journalists deemed his life and death as He had the most comical knock-knees and talk so that even if I couldn’t work judgment. No apologies. No demand for “public property”.) When I refused to and the softest brown hair and blue out why the world had lost him the answers. No explanations. No speculation. comment on his death – I couldn’t, even eyes that couldn’t lie. When he laughed, way we had, I could at least rejoice and Just a simple exploration of the brilliant if I wanted to, such was my state - many and he laughed a lot, it started with reminisce and reconcile all that he was things in life, even when there are publications and programs made up a full-voiced “HA!” – which would be when he was alive. shadows, even when there is despair. It’s a their own stories. Cruel, uninformed, punctuated by a thigh slap and hands reminder that there are hearts to feel for But god it was hard to find people you, ears to listen to you, minds to assist to talk to. Paradoxically, while I was you, mouths to converse with you, hands shooing away thoughtless “reporters”, to lead you, arms to hold you, and humans I couldn’t find anyone to actually talk – many, many humans – to walk alongside to. Suicide makes people shut up. Shut you as your allies. down. Through discomfort. Through shame. Through guilt. Through their Thank you for taking part in this own grief. Through not having the conversation, inside a lived experience, words. Through fear of saying the inside a theatre, inside a community, inside wrong thing. When I tried to talk about a city, inside a country, insidenside a worldworld,, Mark, often my attempts were seen inside humanity. as me “not dealing with it”, or that I’d Like Mark, you are a somehow “lowered the tone”. I ended up brilliant, brilliant thing. in many a quiet corner, crying alone. Or whispering to Mark in the dead of night, I’m so glad you under my blankets. But eventually I did are here. find my community – the people who were happy to talk about Mark. Who welcomed the dialogue. Those glorious 07 1. BIOGRAPHIES DUNCAN MACMILLAN Writer THE SOUND Duncan is a playwright and director from the United Kingdom and former recipient of the Bruntwood Prize. Plays include: People, Places and Things (2015-17 – National Theatre/Wyndham’s Theatre, West End / St Ann’s Warehouse, New York/UK Tour); OF OLD 1984, adapt. George Orwell (2013-17 – Headlong / Nottingham Playhouse / West End / Broadway / international tours, co-adapted / co-directed with Rob Icke); Every Brilliant Thing (2013-17 - Paines Plough / Pentabus Theatre / RECORDS Edinburgh Festival / UK and international tours / HBO); City Of Glass, adapt. Paul Auster (2017 – 59 Productions, HOME and Lyric Hammersmith), 2071, co-written with Chris Rapley (2014-15 - Royal Court Theatre / Hamburg Schauspielhaus); The Forbidden Zone (2014-16 - Salzburg Festival and Schaubühne, Berlin); Wunschloses Unglück, adapt. Peter Handke (2014 - Burgtheater Vienna); Reise Durch die Nacht, adapt. Friederike Mayröcker (2012-14 - Schauspielhaus Köln, Festival d’Avignon, Teatertreffen); Lungs (2011-16 Paines Plough and Sheffield Theatres / Studio Theatre, Washington DC) and Monster (2006 - Royal Exchange). JONNY DONAHOE Original Performer and Co-Writer Jonny is an actor, comedian, playwright, screenwriter, broadcaster, musician, orthodox off-spinner, decent slip-catcher and frustrating lower-order batsman. His one-man show Every Brilliant Thing, (which he co-wrote and originally performed), has played more than six hundred times over four continents, including five months off-Broadway at The Barrow Street Theatre. The show was filmed by World of Wonder and screened as a special on HBO.