Things I Know To Be True By Andrew Bovell

The script play, Things I Know to Be True by Andrew Bovell, published on 8th of September 2016, was later produced by The Frantic Assembly and State Theatre Company of South Australia. This contemporary performance created a deep, intimate, heavy monologue based play (Bovell 2017, para 1) about family and the challenges faced when you love someone influenced by Bovells own experience after grieving the loss of his mother and saying goodbye to his youngest child as they depart for university. Bovell’s inspiration comes from a diverse range of culture behaviors and conditioning to create a raw and organic performance. Things I Know To Be True successfully captures the cycle of life (Booth 2016, para 13) while also presenting audiences with questions by exploring themes of familial love, living up to parental expectations and grief using characterisation, symbols and set design (Brookes 2016, 20).

Things I Know To Be True follows the Price family as they face uncertainties and family drama. Parents, Bob and Fran, have put everything into making sure their children have better lives then they do (Brookes 2016, 8). Throughout a year, portrayed over seasons, their children face
complex decisions and the extent a parent’s love can go when everything they built crashes down (Brookes 2016, 8). Audiences can easily connect to this play as it highlights their own vulnerability and delves into the idea that we’re never ready for the inevitable (Szabo 2016, para 3). Throughout the play is the undertone of being home. Home is where the children return, home is comfort, home is safe. “All those beautiful cities. All that history. All through Europe. And all I could think about was coming home.” (Brookes 2016, 21), connecting to ideas of familial love. The garden, a repeated symbol used, is the anchor point for dreams, memories and provides solitude for each member of the family, allowing them to reflect on past, present and future. “Everything that matters happened here”. This connects to Aboriginal culture in a way that land is at the basis of all Aboriginal relationships, culture practices and identities (Aboriginal People’s connection to land 2018, para 3).

The story itself it told across seasons, reflected in the garden setting resembling a suburban backyard. In summer, Rosie begins to follow her owns beliefs and Bob starts to questions his own certainty, portraying the cycle of life (Booth 2016, para 12). It is also the season that the mother dies, overcome with grief, the family put everything aside to be together, connecting to the questions of “what is most important to us” (Szabo 2016, parar 2). Bob, played by Paul Blackwell (Brookes 2016, 4), is as a man happy with what he has and has worked hard his whole life to provide for his family (Brookes 2016, 9). In Winter, Mark talks about his desire to transition knowing from his childhood that he was always different, also aware that his family would not support him (Brookes 2016, 9). Bob overcomes his own beliefs to support Mark, which is unexpected and beautiful connecting to the theme of familial and presenting the questions “what is more important to us?” (Szabo 2016, para 2). A technique that portrays Bob’s world crumbling down is the curved ceiling made of 122 teardrop lights bulbs, which represents the romanticised view of the family and Bob’s world (Brookes 2016, 27). Physically it represents the isolation that the father lives in and when he starts to questions his own beliefs, the bubble starts to crack (Brookes 2016, 27). From Bovell’s previous adaptions of The Secret River, which represented Aboriginal experience and values (Barnwell 2016, para 3), it can be assumed that the strong theme of family presented throughout was related back to the importance of family in Aboriginal culture.

Another technique used in this play was physicality, presented in lifting actors off the ground and coats being pulled on and off as they are expressing their emotions through monologue, reflecting their emotional state (Flett 2016, para 6).
Things I Know To Be True involves physicality that provides smooth transition and interesting physical theatre that occurred under the direction of Geordie Brookman from State Theatre and Scott Grahman from Frantic Assembly, a renowned company known for its vibrant physical interpretations of text (Flett 2016, para 6). In certain places, the progressive theatrical approach seems unsuitable to the script and averted audiences attention from monologue to movement…occasionally losing the deep connection felt between the actors and audience (Flett 2016, para
7).

Another culture diversity technique that Andrew Bovell, Scott Grahman and Geordie Brookman all had a mutual interest for work by an American photographer, Gregory Crewdson (Brookes 2016, 7). Crewdson artwork often featured relationships between husband, wife and family, focusing on emotional isolation (Brookes 2016, 7). Bovell wanted to react against this art and created a piece that involved some chaos, light and captures the inconstancy to life compared to Crewdson controlled work (Brookes 2016, 7).

Thing I Know To Be True by Andrew Bovell successfully explores the idea of the cycle of life and presents the audience with questions that explored themes of familial love, living up to parental expectation and grief using characterisation, symbols and set design. Successfully proving that no matter the situation, love and family is the most important thing.