Thirty years after the Port Arthur massacre, an award-winning Australian play returns to the stage, asking not what happened that day, but how people live with what came after.
Beyond The Neck opens at Theatre Works in St Kilda this March, bringing Tom Holloway’s acclaimed work back into focus at a time when violence and its aftermath remain part of the daily news cycle. Directed by Suzanne Chaundy, the production arrives as both an anniversary marker and a deeply human piece of theatre.
Set years after Port Arthur, the play weaves together four stories drawn from real accounts. A boy desperate to play cricket. A teenage girl going through the motions of family life. A mother on a holiday she never asked for. A tour guide who returns to the site day after day. They are strangers, connected only by the shared gravity of loss.
Theatre Works Executive Director Dianne Toulson says the play deliberately avoids depicting the attack itself. “Beyond the Neck isn’t about the violence itself, it’s about what happens after. It’s about grief, survival, and the long, uneven process of recovery”.
She says recent events have sharpened the work’s relevance. “It forced a deeper reckoning… because it reminded us that trauma doesn’t stay in the past. It resurfaces. It echoes”.
Rather than shock, the production prioritises care. “This is not about shock. It’s about empathy… not to be retraumatised, but to feel less alone.”
Beyond The Neck sits somewhere between testimonial theatre and poetic storytelling, structured more like a musical quartet than a traditional play. It features an award-winning creative team and a respected ensemble including Francis Greenslade and Emmaline Carroll Southwell.
The season runs from 19 March to 4 April at Theatre Works in Acland Street St Kilda before touring to West Gippsland, The Round and the Clocktower Centre. Bookings for the Theatre Works season are available here.
