Fringe: Kate O’Keeffe show.
By John Van Klaveren
PRESENTING a solo show at the Adelaide Fringe Festival about a missing person left performer Kate O’Keefe feeling a little uneasy.
But not because the show was about her brother, Highton man Daniel O’Keefe, who left the family home more than eight months ago.
“It’s a huge issue but people don’t talk about it. It’s one of those elephant-in-the-room situations,” Ms O’Keefe said.
“I was afraid that people might not have come to see the show because it made them feel uneasy.
“It’s not easy to talk about and people often don’t want to think about or feel those things.
“It made the show difficult to promote because it felt like a negative in the middle of all these happy or funny shows.”
She wrote her show, Life as I Knew It, as part of a creative drama class for her primary teacher studies before enlisting two friends as producer and director for the Adelaide debut.
“I wanted to do it in Adelaide first, away from the spotlight in Victoria,” she said.
“The response has been really good. People stayed afterward to talk and told me they were moved.
“I’ve been encouraged to bring the show to the Melbourne fringe and to Geelong.”
Ms O’Keefe said dealing with the aftermath of a family member going missing was complex.
“Doing the show enabled me to express myself and it was cathartic and therapeutic.
“But the main reason for it was to raise awareness of the situation.”
