In Australia, intimate partner violence is the number one non-disease related cause of death, disability and illness for women aged 15-44.
In the home, where women should feel safest, is actually the most dangerous place for them, statistically.
This quote, from celebrated author Tara Moss in an interview with domestic and family violence advocate Rosie Batty, sparked a new theatre production dealing with the realities of domestic violence in contemporary Australia.
Laura Jackson, a young Australian playwright and actress, says the idea for her new play came to her fully formed; an idea built upon a wave of recent public and political attention focused on the need to protect victims of family violence.
The work is called The Culture, and it confronts the modern Australian culture that oppresses groups in society through omnipresent threats of violence. For Katie, one of the two main characters, this exists in the form of a violent relationship and years of feeling unsafe in her day-to-day life. For Will, a young gay man and Katie’s closest friend, this exists in the form of relentless homophobia and intolerance.
However it manifests, the oppression is ubiquitous throughout our culture. We want to fight it, but we don’t know how.
“How do you put yourself out there in a world where you aren’t equal?” That’s the question Jackson says she wants the play to address. How do you keep yourself safe in a society that uses the constant threat of violence as its greatest oppressive weapon?
The play’s theme is established in its opening scene, a split monologue between Katie and Will. In the monologue, Will tells a story about walking home at night behind a woman he didn’t know and accidentally frightened her. He didn’t mean to, he tells us, but he understands why she was scared. That’s the culture.
Katie’s monologue describes a lecturer in one of her classes asking the men in the room what they do in order to keep themselves safe. They couldn’t answer. The teacher then asked the women what they do to keep themselves safe in their everyday lives, what precautions they keep in the backs of their minds. The list of answers is endless. A shared understanding of the rules of engagement; an artillery of defences.
Don’t walk home alone. Always have a buddy. Lock the car as soon as you get into it. Keep your keys in your hands at all times in case you need a weapon. Don’t let your phone go dead.
These mechanisms are well known and widely shared, a response to a threat we have long understood. But the question the lecturer asks in Katie’s story speaks to a threat we have, for so long as a nation, failed to properly understand or address.
What do you do to keep yourselves safe in your own home?
In the home, where women should feel safest, is statistically the most dangerous place for them.
This, Jackson explains, is the central theme of her work.
“Domestic violence is finally garnering the attention it needs in the public conversation and I wanted to be a part of that conversation with my work,” she said.
“I’ve always felt that theatre has a real power to open peoples’ hearts and minds and I hope this new play encourages people to think more deeply about the issue of domestic violence.”
Crucially, Jackson wants her play to encourage people to connect with the realities of domestic violence on a personal level, through the journey of her female character, caught in a cycle of abuse.
“Katie is a strong independent woman who ends up in a violent relationship with a terrible person. It’s not her fault; it happens because there are terrible people out there. That’s the culture.”
Jackson hopes her exploration of Katie’s character and relationship will cause the audience to think about how they can be more keenly aware of the signs of a violent relationship and speak out when they see them developing. In the play, Katie uses social media to project images of a happy, loving relationship to the world, but there are warning signs that cut through the façade. Jackson wants us all to look out for them.
“I want people to walk away thinking about what they do and don’t know about domestic violence. I want them to walk away determined to change the culture,” she said.
Jackson’s new play was developed as a follow up to her acclaimed work Handle It, which confronts difficult themes of online harassment, misogyny, sexual assault and victim blaming. Handle It is now in its eighth season, and Jackson says its success has inspired her to continue writing about the issues facing young women in contemporary Australian society.
Handle It and The Culture will both feature in the upcoming Sydney Fringe Festival. Handle It will run from the 23rd-24th September at the Erskineville Town Hall. The Culture will run from the 25th-27thof September, also at the Erskineville Town Hall. The Culture will also be showing at the Phoenix Theatre in Woollongong from September 11-13.