My Brother My Brother My Brother, the revolutionary play's recap.

Cafe Locked Out/ Kulture

The idea of three modern-day young men lost at sea without their devices had been with me for years. I could see them clearly in my head.
Finally, I decided to liberate them and sat down to write the play.
My Brother, My Brother, My Brother.

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It didn’t take long, but I did feel it was pointless—what theatre would stage a play that celebrated the masculinity of these young men, explored our reaction to COVID in society, and touched on vaccine injuries?
To my surprise, the first theatre I approached offered me four days in a three-week window.

Actors Odysseus, Tom Dray, Joshua Bruce and Will Curtain

Despite it’s short life, the Play inspired two songs written by men.

This song was written by Matt Lawson, and named after the play

All I needed now were actors, a boat, and an audience.
To my surprise again, when we put out the call for actors, we received a passionate response. One young man, Sam, even flew in from Adelaide just to audition.

Then an artist named Mills offered to build us the boat—and he did a masterful job.
While waiting for the boat, the actors, in rehearsal, used chairs to signify the boat.
And this was when it got exciting.
I was a mature man, old even, and the play was for young men.
So I told them that I didn’t want actors acting like robots. I wanted them to treat the script like a bass guitar, with them as three lead guitarists, coloring it in with their artistic instincts, while trying to stay on tune.

This they did.
It meant the play was raw, loud, and perfectly imperfect.
The script itself was also a Trojan horse.
Part One was about them stopping the boat from sinking—a simple rite of passage play. If they panicked like boys, they’d sink; if they became men, they’d fix the boat and have a chance at survival.
But one of the characters, Conor, had myocarditis from the jabs. This character, played by an actor who proudly claimed to be double jabbed, was based on a real young man named Conor.
Conor had been stuck in his bedroom for two years, unable to leave due to his illness. He was also, to a great degree, ignored by the health system.

Mills, the boat builder, and me hamming it up

At the start of Part Two, Conor began suggesting they don’t go home, for there was nothing there for them—just shame for being men. As far as he was concerned, our society didn’t want masculine men anymore.

The Poem ‘IF’ by Rudyard Kipling update to a rap song many hated it, I think it shows the great timeless power of the piece.

And since the boat was incapacitated and just floating, the young men passed the time by talking freely about the issues they faced.

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Finally, they saw an intermittent light, and two of them were prepared to swim toward it, in a perilous attempt to save their dying mate.
But at the last minute, the light went out. So they sat with Conor, trying to keep him warm, as they hopefully waited for society to hear their ails and begin the journey of re-empowering its young men.
But as they waited in hope, their own light—a torch—went out.
This was on purpose, as we were asking the audience a question:
If you treat your young men like there is something wrong with them—like they are toxic, unwanted—what do you think will happen to their souls?

We opened to a full house of 80 people and did five more healthy shows—four in the city and two at the Red Rock Theatre near Colac.
Then, when we returned to the Alex for a third season, we assumed that word of mouth, coupled with our great reviews, would see us do well.
Instead, the theatre was so empty that one actor lost the courage to do his lines, and we had to cancel the rest of the run.

But while that hurt, in an era of silence—where the government was celebrating silencing us all in order to keep us safe—this little boat broke through the theatrical barrier and brought the real issues facing masculine young men to the stage, and it did so beautifully.
“Beautiful” was the word most women, with misty eyes, said to me at the end of the performance.

Now the boat is in storage. Will it ever float again? Who knows.
But even if it doesn’t, it was a worthy failure.
I’d like to thank the courage of The Alex Theatre, the young actors, and those who attended.

— Michael Gray Griffith

P.S. The boat was christened IF, after Rudyard Kipling’s great poem that once served as a blueprint for being a good man, but now it is a decrepit and forgotten boat drifting out on a metaphorical sea, with three young men onboard who feel unwanted by their country—Australia.