Beached is not an attempt to explain the link between class and obesity. Rather, my awareness of that link informed my choice to tell this particular story, my attempt to show the humans behind the labels – ‘poor’, ‘dumb’, ‘freak’.

Melissa Bubnic

DIRECTOR’S
NOTE

You don’t have to touch me, that’s okay - Arty

My own personal connection to this play comes from my friend who weighed 20 stone on his 21st birthday. On that day he walked into my room and sat on my bed crying and said 'I don't think I will ever find anyone who will love me’. It was a heartbreaking moment because he knew his body had become a barrier to living a normal life.

Beached explores obesity and the way we view it culturally through reality TV, an industry that has made fortunes out of the physical misfortunes of others. Reality TV feeds off people's insecurities and their natural human instinct to be nosy, glimpsing something we know we shouldn’t be witnessing.

I revere Melissa Bubnic for her ability to write pop culture plays that truly explore the times we live in. Australia is today ranked as one of the fattest nations in the developed world. The prevalence of obesity in Australia has more than doubled in the past 20 years.

To date, Arty is the largest character to ever grace the Griffin stage!

What Melissa has chosen to explore is most fascinating to me, the role of feeders. When one’s life is dependent on the illness of another it becomes an addiction in itself. The play explores what happens when a parent is projecting their own needs on their child. A parent cannot fix the problem when they are the major part of the problem.

On the topic of parents, my own mother is an avid fan of Survivor, The Glee Project, Are you Smarter Than a 5th Grader?, The Amazing Race and other reality shows. It’s hard for me to come to terms with how someone I love so dearly can have such a serious affliction - she even tapes Survivor so she can watch the episodes twice! I am fascinated with the subliminal messages these shows and advertising feed us so that we become addicted to watching. So don’t watch reality tv, watch a play about reality tv. It’s live and hopefully more enlightening!

Shannon Murphy

Melissa Bubnic

Playwright