Writer's Notes

Before I began Unspoken, I wrote down my overall aim as a writer, not even really knowing what content I would cover, or in what form, just understanding that I had to say something…

I dug it up the other day and this is what I wrote (March, 2003): Through my story I want people to see the fun and failure of courage. I want people to love the amazing process of realisation. I want to share this thing inside me that feels like a privilege, a joy, a commonality, a peace. I want to give people some peace. I want to show my audience love. I want everyone loved. A simple sharing. We need to watch each other carefully and we need to trust. We need open hands and enormous hearts. The nature of trust is a moment to moment experience. It is incredibly strong and active, and as vulnerable as breath. People seem scared to DO, to MOVE, to CREATE, to BE, to get QUIET. I am. I want to talk about the forces that move us and make us stop. I want to make my audience breathe out and be embraced by my story.

At the time, I may have had a little laugh at my seventies love-child sentiments and a big gasp at the audacity of the vision knocking at my heart, but I did keep that first piece of paper in a safe place, and one year on I had written a very tender poetic piece, celebrating and lamenting romantic love. But I kept on writing, now with some wise people helping and inspiration from the National Playwright’s Conference in ‘04. People were asking me, “Can you tell me more about your brother?” At first I didn’t know what he had to do with anything. This was about love, right? Escape. Not about my brother and his disabilities. But slowly I began to write more about him, just to see what was there. Two years on, I have a burgeoning understanding about my experience of love and the universe, my family, the disabled community and the magical world of theatre that I could never have anticipated. I can only bow down to the process now…It’s a powerful thing.

On the 30th of March 1993, my first and only brother was born. I was a teenager at the time. The first thing that we all saw was his bilateral cleft palate. It was a heart-stopping shock. When he was 8 months old he was diagnosed with epilepsy, scoliosis and cerebral palsy (holoprose encephaly). It meant that he was severely brain damaged, that he would never walk or talk and would be tube feed for the rest of his life, however long that might be. The road ahead for him and for us was one of the scariest unknown things that I could imagine. In the everyday “coping” world, we were an efficient and loving family and I was already set for my flight from home into a bigger, promising place. But, at the deepest unspoken level, I had a chronic fear about really engaging my heart in my brother because I wasn't sure how long he was with us, what he understood, or what life was like for him. I didn't know what it was that I could do for him (what I was willing to do) and I had no way of making a real and lasting connection. Also, I didn't want to face what his severe disabilities signalled about me; about my inability to make the most of my full life, my able body and my voice.My parents also kept me at a safe distance and we all became very protective, of our hearts and of each other. It's a beautiful and painful bond. It's strange. It's family.

My brother was two by the time I left for University. There, I began relationships that I hoped could carry me all the places that I dreamed about. I looked to love to take me away from my responsibilities, to myself and my world. My push/pull feelings around giving my heart to my brother were transferred into all forms of love and sometimes my life choices were tinged with an ache, protectiveness and anger that I couldn’t name or understand.

Back home, my parents cared for my brother daily, and chartered much of the emotional territory that I am yet to discover. Because of my distance, I stayed stuck in lonely denial and guilt for a very long time and I would say I'm just emerging now, through the writing and performance of Unspoken and by way of the dialogue it is opening. This is a common story amongst those with siblings with disabilities, and amongst siblings generally…Time and distance offering late insights and release.

Really hearing my brother’s voice requires that I let go of my fears and self-consciousness and just be present for whatever might come up. When that connection happens, by some lucky and rare grace, it leaves me breathless. It’s just love. It plunges and it soars. Whether he knows it or not, or would choose it or not, my brother is teaching me one of the biggest lessons of the heart…Let go and listen.

Unspoken takes real characters and experience as a template, a heart-beat, with many fictionalised events and lashes of poetic licence folded in, to bring forward what I hope is an entertaining and welcoming story that also gets to the guts of it, in 50 minutes.

When I first sat down to write about love two years ago, I would have never anticipated the strangeness, complexity, ferocity, passion, and life-force of the story that would emerge.

Through sharing this story, I want to help others see just a little of the stuff inside this experience, in the hope that it may take people closer to truth and healing inside of whatever family dynamic they live within.

Rebecca Clarke

I’ve been brought up with people telling me stories from day dot. Storytelling is important. You’re planting seeds, trying to give something back, changing lives, empowering yourself and others. Sometimes it’s easier said than done, but when you really hit it, magic happens.

The best stories, the ones that really bleed into your soul, don’t only belong to the storyteller; they belong to, and should be shared by all of us.

This story has been in my heart for the last three years. I remember Rebecca and I, first entering a discussion on Unspoken, and how it filtered into my body from the first page. And it didn’t let me go. Unspoken is an unheard voice that explores love in all its possible forms. Unspoken is something very different, yet holds the essence to be familiar to every one of us.

Then, a few weeks ago, we entered the rehearsal room and we haven’t looked back. We have gone to the depths and we’ve come up for air and gone back down for another look. We’ve explored and really tested ourselves, and have not apologized for anything.

I want to thank Rebecca for her honesty and fearlessness, and TRS for giving this company a chance to perform this unique tale.

Let’s share something tonight.

Please enjoy Unspoken.

Wayne Blair