As a young woman living with a chronic autoimmune disease, I’ve spent a long time contemplating whether people will ever really see or understand me.
How could they? Do I even want them to? I’ve spent so much of my life trying to prove myself as a performer and as a woman, trying to show the world that behind ‘looking fine’ there is a world of pain underneath.
I have Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), hence the title RARA. There is no cure. The pain is always there; it’s the only constant in my life. It touches every part of my world: how I move, how I plan, how I show up for the people I love. It also shows up in small moments: not being able to open that jar, having to inject myself with medicine I can’t pronounce, choosing whether to go to work.
I’ve spent a lot of time trying to find the light in the cards I’ve been dealt. There’s no other choice. Humour and art have kept me going when all else feels impossible. Beyoncé once said “I was served lemons, but I made lemonade”. I was served RA and I made RARA.
RARA was a story begging to be told. I wrote it for my own sanity, but also for every woman who has ever felt like her illness might swallow her whole. Chronic illness affects roughly 60% of women in Australia, so I know this story isn’t unique to me. Still, I can count on one hand the times I’ve seen it on stage.
Life with chronic illness can be incredibly lonely. I wanted to make something that brings us together.
RARA is unapologetic. It’s big. It’s worlds of pain mixed in with worlds of hope, about deep fears and even deeper desires. I believe we need more art that talks about complex, difficult things in ways that are still exciting, funny and alive. Art that doesn’t ask us to choose between being honest about our pain and being full of joy. We are allowed to be both.
None of this would have happened without the Katie Lees Fellowship. I’m endlessly grateful to the incredible women at the foundation, who backed this story and believed in it before it was fully formed. I hope this story is one Katie would be proud of, and that it contributes to her legacy of bold, powerful, female led stories.
My goal with RARA is to shed light on invisible illness and to build community around it. If you’re living with a chronic condition, I hope you leave the theatre feeling a little less alone. If you’re not, I hope you leave holding a little more space for pain that we can’t necessarily see. We as people are really strong; we have the ability to carry a lot more than we think we can. But we also deserve to be gentle, with ourselves and others. I hope RARA can show that.
I can’t take the pain away. But I can help you hold it. With vulnerability, a whole lot of heart, and some good belly laughs along the way.
RARA plays at Flight Path Theatre from November 10-14. Tickets are available here.
