Political concerns aside, Caress/Ache deals with the physical andemotional power of the human touch. Of all the senses, why did you find touch the most powerful?
The sensory system of touch is the one that is most connected to communication. I wanted to explore the way human beings can say something so complex with the simplest of somatic gestures. That the body can be used to ‘speak’ to one another using its own language is something quite beautiful. Touch encompasses the embrace of a mother, the tender touch of a lover, a comforting hug in times of crisis, the sexual expression of desire – and yet it can be a form of violence, betrayal and terror. All of this without words. When we are stripped of language, money, security and much more, it is where our humanity can still be expressed.
The play was inspired by an Australian’s execution for drug trafficking overseas, an issue very much in the news at the moment. Do you hope your audience will empathise with these people?
It is quite devastating to me that governments persist in using state-sanctioned murder as a means of punishment. The killing of another human being is never justified if we are ever to be a decent society. In 2005 the government of Singapore put to death a young Australian man, Van Tuong Nguyen, for his role in drug smuggling. Before he was hanged it was revealed that his mother was not allowed to touch him before he was executed. That she was barred from hugging her child and that he would die without such a gesture felt so specifically cruel. At the time I was working as a human rights lawyer – and I was working specifically with young people – so I was very involved in the campaign to keep this young man from the death penalty. When he was ultimately hanged, I felt such anger not only over his untimely and barbaric death, but also in watching the despair of his mother.
What made you turn to a career in theatre?
While I was a lawyer I attended NIDA and wrote plays, and slowly this work became more central to my working life so that I found myself having to choose. I was lucky to have a residency at the National Theatre in London and at other theatres in the UK and North America, which made me realise that I couldn’t maintain both jobs, because now I wasn’t even in the same city most of the time, and my passion for writing won out.
Caress/Acheis playing atSBW Stables TheatrefromFriday February 27 until Saturday April 11, tickets online.
