The Bridge 1990

A production about the collapse of the Westgate Bridge developed with the local community and writer Vicki Reynolds. This production took place in an old warehouse next to the Footscray Community Arts Centre. It was a theatre production and a memorial to the 35 workers who died when the bridge collapsed on October 15th 1970. Workers who survived the collapse helped us develop the performance.

I co-devised and directed a production on the collapse of the Westgate Bridge with script writer Vicki Reynolds. This work took stories told to us by people who survived the collapse or lost family members in the collapse and formed them into a theatre production titled The Bridge.

The Bridge crossed over from Verbatim Theatre and/ or Documentary Theatre and into the area of ritual and memorial. Many of the survivors of the bridge collapse had had no counselling after the collapse and they were fired, seven days after the collapse. As a result they found the rituals of the theatre production important as they needed and wanted to tell someone, anyone, what had happened. The section of The Bridge which acted as a memorial was where the real names of those who died were read out as 35 pairs of boots were laid out across the stage.