First Seen: Doula by Emily Clark

When a death doula takes on a prickly new client, both must grapple with their responsibilities to those they love or risk irreparable damage to their most precious relationships.

What if you know you’re going to die, and soon? What if you are paralysed by fear? When you’re unprepared for the inevitable, what is at stake?

Over a series of intimate encounters, we bear witness to the unexpected friendship of a dying woman and her death doula. Sparring at first, the two have a difficult time understanding the other until ultimately discovering that they have more in common than they first thought. Together, they must come to grips with the divide between the stories they tell themselves about their own lives and the mounting evidence. 

This is a free First Seen work in progress showing but RSVPs are essential to manage numbers.
Please RSVP with your name and telephone number to rsvp@thestreet.org.au.

Creative team:

Director: Shelly Higgs
Dramaturg: Caleb Lewis
Actors: Zsuzsi Soboslay and Christina Falsone

Playwright:

Emily is a Canberra-based director, dramaturg and playwright. She studied English and Drama at ANU, and dramaturgy at the University of Sydney. Emily was an intern on several new works in development at Playwriting Australia. She directed Dylan Van Den Berg’s The Camel (2019) for the Hobart Fringe Festival and was dramaturg on his play, Apprehended (2020). Recently, she completed a course on screenwriting at AFTRS and, as part of the research for her play, Doula, attained a Certificate of Midwifing Death. Emily has participated in The Street Theatre’s Early Phase program (2021-2022).