The Bleeding Tree: Empowering the voices of survivors

By Katherine Porritt-Fraser

Content Warning: Discussions of violence against women

 In a world where so often depictions of violence against women focus solely on presenting and dramatizing the abuse itself, dismissing the emotional and mental lives of survivors, The Bleeding Tree is a breath of fresh air to me.

 The play follows three women – a mother and her daughters – in the events following a highly traumatic event that sends them into a spiral of emotional highs and lows, as they try to make sense of their lives together.

 I distinctly remember the sensations I felt after reading it the first time, when the show’s director Alice Stafford asked me to assistant direct – overwhelmed, hopeful, furious – but most of all driven to bring this incredible story to life.

 Its uniquely Australian dialogue immediately cements the play in our context, preventing us from dismissing the abuse it explores as irrelevant to us.

 The story is told entirely through the voices of the women, which was to me its biggest strength. There is no male character rushing in to save them, or looming narrator that speaks for them. They narrate and create the story together. Everything we see is formed through their eyes.

 This allows the actors freedom to make these characters complex and gripping, as they are not pigeon-holed into one-dimensional, simplistic and reductive representations of survivors. In the course of the play they are enraged, helpless, mourning and joyous all in the space of a few days.

 The Bleeding Tree paints a nuanced and complicated picture of survivors of violence. It gives them the complexity their stories have always deserved.

 It is not the glossy, polite theatre we are used to, and that is what makes it powerful.

 It is gritty, messy, challenging and unapologetic. It won’t let you look away from the story it’s trying to tell.

 Come see this production bring these voices to life.

The Bleeding Tree is on at The Cellar Theatre from the 30th to 2nd and 6th to 9th of November.