Some Secrets Should be Kept Secret

Glenn Shea’s Some Secrets Should Be Kept Secret is a haunting and deeply affecting piece of theatre that lingers long after its final moments.

With quiet authority, Shea, also appearing as The Storyteller, alongside Associate Director Dr Kirsty Reilly, has crafted an immersive world that feels less like a staged production and more like stepping into a living memory. The work unfolds within an Indigenous Australian Gothic landscape that both conceals and exposes its painful truths, allowing the story to breathe in its own unsettling reality.

The production’s structure is especially striking. Beginning outdoors in the La Mama courtyard before guiding audiences inside to the claustrophobic interior of a remote homestead, the transition mirrors the narrative’s descent into buried history.

On opening night, a light rain fell as the fictional storm gathered, a moment of serendipity that perfectly matched the show’s brooding atmosphere. This environmental storytelling creates a powerful sense of inevitability, as though the land itself is complicit in guarding the past.

At its core, the play confronts the legacy of institutional child abuse and the trauma endured by members of the Stolen Generation, doing so with sensitivity rather than sensationalism.

The premise, three adopted siblings summoned by letters to return to their late mother’s isolated farm for the reading of her will, unfolds into an epic reckoning. As long-buried secrets surface, the narrative compels both characters and audience to face uncomfortable truths that refuse to remain hidden.

The cast delivers uniformly strong performances. Brodie Murray’s Matthew carries a quiet emotional weight, Corey Saylor-Brunskill gives Peter a raw, guarded intensity, and Maggie Church-Kopp brings both vulnerability and steel to Camille.

Nicole Nabout’s housekeeper is an enigmatic presence, at once welcoming and watchful, while Syd Brisbane’s Michael adds further layers to the family’s fractured history. Together, they create a believable web of relationships strained by absence, grief and memory.

Technically, the production is superbly realised. Meg White’s set evokes a homestead steeped in time and silence, while Elissa Goodrich’s sound design and Cobie Orger’s video work subtly deepen the atmosphere rather than overwhelming it. Gina Gascoigne’s lighting sculpts the space with shadows that feel almost sentient, reinforcing the sense that the house itself is holding its breath.

Some Secrets Should Be Kept Secret is not comfortable viewing, and it is not meant to be. Instead, it is a courageous, compassionate work that acknowledges pain while honouring resilience.

Shea has created a piece that is both intimate and expansive, unsettling yet ultimately illuminating. It is theatre that matters: thoughtful, beautifully crafted, and unafraid to ask audiences to sit with difficult truths.