In March prepare for an epic journey when the final chapter of Glenn Shea’s extraordinary thirty year work, An Indigenous Trilogy descends on La Mama HQ with Some Secrets Should be Kept Secret.
This Black gothic tale of lies, secrets, and Truth Telling is so epic it won’t be contained by theatre walls. When a woman dies, three letters are sent to her adopted children from the Stolen Generation asking them to return to the remote homestead for the reading of her will.
So begins an epic journey for the siblings. Their arrival at the old farm where they’re welcomed by the old housekeeper catalyses the unravelling of the secrets held deep in the home for some thirty years, and the three are forced to face some demons they’d prefer stayed buried in the back paddock.
“My secret is your secret – but is your secret my secret? The play deals with all we’ve kept under the lid from childhood to adulthood. What happens when it can no longer be contained?” says 2025 Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting winner, Glenn Shea.
Like too-long-held secrets, the play itself will spill over and embed within each nook and cranny of La Mama HQ – a design task not for the faint-hearted. But set designer, Meg White was in fact the lead architect of La Mama’s Rebuild, and has a sound grasp of the spatial opportunities.
“Post fire, La Mama, with her additional spaces along with the old theatres’ many doors and windows, fireplace, and stairs, creates the perfect backdrop for this story about the inexorable threads that pull us back to the childhood home. Here, on the site of devastating fire, we engage with the power of place and memory, of loss and rebirth,” says Meg White.
“Playwright Glenn Shea paints characters and environments in this story as elusive as they are real. The weaving throughout the play of First Nations ideology, spirituality, its synergy of time and space anchors the story,” says Associate Director Dr Kirsty Reilly.
Producer, Director, Writer, Performer: Glenn Shea | Associate Director: Dr Kirsty Reilly | Featuring: Brodie Murray, Corey Saylor-Brunskill, Maggie Church-Kopp, Nicole Nabout, Syd Brisbane | Set Designer: Meg White | Sound Designer: Elissa Goodrich | Video Artist: Cobie Orger | Lighting Designer: Gina Gascoigne | Animation: Mia Reilly-Shea | Stage Manager/Operator: Katy Munroe Farlie | Associate Producer: Tess Nethercote Way | Costume Assistant: Lucy Payne | Show Carpenter: Rob Cooke
Image: Some Secrets Should be Kept Secret – photo by Darren Gill