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 Playwright DAVID LINDSAY-ABAIRE won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for RABBIT HOLE, a poignant examination of the effects of death on a family’s sense of self. SEANNA VAN HELTEN talks to actor TIM DASHWOOD about discovering the humanity of grief.
Before you read the following synopsis of David Lindsay-Abaire’s Rabbit Hole, directed for Queensland Theatre Company by Michael Futcher, performer Tim Dashwood wants you to keep in mind the following: “It sounds really depressing, but there are actually laughs throughout!”
Eight months after the accidental road death of their only son, Danny, Becca (Helen Howard) and Howie (Eugene Gilfedder) are buckling still under the weight of their grief. Neither Becca nor Howie have found an adequate method of coping with their loss, and both feel unable to draw comfort from their once contented marriage. The advice of Becca’s mother (Carol Burns) seems equally unhelpful, and Becca’s wayward half-sister (Zoe Houghton) has just arrived with the untimely news of her pregnancy. Then, as Becca’s and Howie’s shared grief reaches its nadir, Dashwood’s character arrives to further complicate the family drama.
“My character is the one who was driving the car that hit the boy and killed him,” explains Dashwood, who is one of this year’s Emerging Artists for QTC. “And, eight months on…he has a strange urge to actually meet the husband and wife and to sit down at talk to them, about nothing in particular. He almost gets to a stalker point – not a bad stalker – but he just has this obsession and he needs to talk to them.”
Plus, Dashwood reveals, his character is also mourning a close family member, and trying to cope with his own sense of tragedy. How each of the characters’ attempt to make sense of their own pain, while trying to equally alleviate the suffering of their family members is the driving tension of David Lindsay-Abaire’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play. Rabbit Hole highlights “how people grieve in different ways and need to be comforted differently,” Dashwood says. “The husband wants to go back to what it used to be like – to hug one other and be a couple again. But Becca needs to push away…. She needs to get rid of anything that reminds her of Danny just so she can get past his death.”
Although the drama is set in the United States, in a small town in the state of New York, Dashwood is certain Lindsay-Abaire’s themes are “universal.” “It’s everyday life,” he says, describing the play’s domestic mise-en-scene, and the naturalistic gravity of Lindsay-Abaire’s writing. “Everyone across the world has to deal with the problem of death, no matter how big or small, so everyone has similar stories.”
In fact when Dashwood first read the script, he explains, he was immediately struck by the coincidence of his character’s experiences and those of an old school friend: “He was driving home one day from work, and a taxi flashed his lights at him, and he hit a girl in the middle of the road.”
Even in the aftermath of an accident, the question of responsibility lingers for the parties involved. “That is half of my character’s trouble,” says Dashwood. “He has sort of been let off scot-free, but it is pretty hard to deal with the fact that he’s killed someone, taken away someone’s life that he doesn’t even know.”
As you might expect from a play with such acclaim, although it does indeed sound very depressing, Dashwood assures that Lindsay-Abaire’s rich, textured writing – “two thirds drama and one third comedy” – reflects the dynamism of any familial situation. “It’s that approach of the truth inside what is happening … the play is written about the characters’ interactions, and the situation we’re in is just beautiful,” he continues. “And everyone who comes to see it will have their own experiences to bring.”
RABBIT HOLE, produced by Queensland Theatre Company, plays at the Cremorne Theatre, QPAC from April 28 – May 31. For tickets phone QTIX 136 246 or visit www.qldtheatreco.com.au
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