Beyond the Neck is a play written by the Australian playwright Tom Holloway and published by Brisbane's Playlab Press in 2008, as the first full-length play that Holloway created. The play is divided into two halves, "The First Movement" and "The Second Movement". It is based upon the stories and testimonies of the victims of the 1996 Port Arthur Massacre and is centred at the Broad Arrow Café in Tasmania where the event took place. In 2004, as part of the Melbourne International Arts Festival, La Mama chose an early draft of the script to further develop, and so in 2005, with funding from the Australian Council of Arts, Holloway began the process of researching the event of the Port Arthur Massacre and interviewing those most affected. The play was included in the NSW HSC Drama Syllabus from 2015-2018.
Characters
1 - 7 year old boy
Although the young boy has no clear connection to the Port Arthur Massacre, he is included to show the effects of grief and the differing ways in which individuals deal with it. Feeling lonely and forgotten by his parents, the young boy invents an imaginary friend to keep him company named Michael. The young boy constantly talks to Michael throughout the play, and it becomes known that the imaginary friend is a bad influence, encouraging him to perform violent and sadistic acts, as well as the inappropriate joke that triggers the character's flashbacks towards the end of the play.
2 - 17 year old girl
The teenage girl remains largely affected by the events of the Port Arthur Massacre, her father a victim of Martin Bryant. Struggling to deal with his death, she turns to conspiracy theories to explain the events of that day. Due to her mother's quick rebound with her father's best friend, the young girl struggles to connect with them and accept herself within her family. The trip to Port Arthur brings up a multitude of emotions for the character, as seeing the Port Arthur Memorial Garden and commemorative plaque, as well as her conversation with Character 4, allows her to finally understand the reality of the massacre and what happened to her father.
3 - 28 year old woman
Character 3 is another individual included to demonstrate the way in which people come to terms with their grief. For the majority of the play, she speaks to her husband David and her child Molly, as they travel on a bus tour around Tasmania with a group of elderly people. It is only at the end of the play, however, when her flashbacks are triggered, that it becomes clear that David and Molly are only memories conjured by her imagination. The two were killed in a car accident, and though some time has passed the young woman continues to struggle to accept the reality of their death.
4 - 75 year old man
One of the most important characters within the play, the old man works at the Broad Arrow Café where the massacre took place, and was a direct witness to its atrocities. He suffers significant post-traumatic stress disorder, with flashbacks regularly plaguing him throughout the entirety of the play. The most significant of his episodes occurs at the climax of Beyond the Neck, when Character 1 pretends that a massacre is happening again as a joke. The old man believes that he, and everyone around him, is in danger and thus reacts quickly. The monumental physical and emotional toll of witnessing the massacre is made clear to the audience through his monologue, as he describes in significant depth particular details about the event, such as the woman covered in blood who hugged him.
A visitor
This character can be played by any one of the actors, required only for the "Coda" at the end of the play.
Plot summary
"Tune Up" Instruction for the director to raise all lights to full brightness and then slowly dim them, as the characters walk on stage and touch up their outfits before the lights dim to absolute darkness and the play begins.
"Overture" Beyond the Neck begins with the "Overture", in which the location of the play, Port Arthur, is introduced. The character "4" (old man), details the negative history of the location, speaking of the hardships of the convicts who lived in the penal settlement in the 1800s (see History Port Arthur, Tasmania). The characters "1" (boy), "2" (teenage girl), "3" (young mother and wife), and "4" (old man) are then introduced, through direct address and as the musical quartet piece that Holloway intended. The "Overture" acts as a prologue to the characters and their backstories, placing them in relation to the events of the Port Arthur Massacre.