The Art of Not Being Alone

I've always been a creator, an artist, a theatre maker. It's in my blood, a legacy from my parents, hippies from the '70s who moved our family to a farm where we ate fruit from the garden after school and swam in the creek on a hot summer's day. My life was a unique blend of formal tradition and free-spirited creation. I went to Catholic schools, and like most who went to them, my relationship with the institution of religion was complicated. The dogma often felt rigid, though my belief in personal spirituality was always fierce and unshakeable.

So, it's a surprise to everyone, especially me, that I recently became a religion teacher. To teach it, I had to develop a new language and a new understanding of the word "god." An exploration that helped me feel comfortable, curious and empathetic when teaching it.  In doing so, I found a strange and beautiful relationship with it, one that led me back to something I've always known: art.Through my years in theatre and visual arts, I had a realisation. If there is a "god"—an all-encompassing term I use for understanding the beauty in the universe—it would be the relationship between the art, the artwork, and the artist. Nothing else on this planet creates a shared language that connects the natural world, humanity, and spans conversations of feeling, beauty, and creation across time and space.

That connection, that unspoken language of beauty and feeling, is present in no other form. Think about the silent power of a single actor holding a stage, the way a lighting cue can convey a thousand emotions, or how a single note from an orchestra can make an entire audience weep. The sensation we, as the audience, get from an artist's visualisation of language is so important. It's not just an intellectual recognition; it's a gut-level, visceral feeling, often unexplainable. When a character on stage says a line that perfectly articulates a fear or a joy you've always felt but never had the words for, that's it. That's the conversation whispering, "I know you, I see you, you are not alone." The artist took their most personal, vulnerable feeling and, through the act of creation, made it a shared truth in an attempt to connect to the ultimate artform - nature, and the human condition. They bravely put a piece of their soul on the line, hoping that someone, somewhere, would recognise it; never truly knowing who or when they will connect to. Even the actor portraying the role is drawing from a similar place, participating in that ethereal conversation. In that moment, the audience and the artist become part of the same silent, beautiful conversation.

I believe this silent, ancient language is the language of what we call God. You can call it what you like, I know I do - the Universe, Creation, connection. Hindu call it Brahman. Taoists call it Tao. Whatever you choose to call it, it’s timeless, and universal.  It's been with us since the first humans, who, once they were free from the constant concern of survival, sought to create a way to have a conversation about thought and feeling without literal words. Think of the stories told on cave walls—not just records of a hunt, but the very first visual conversations about struggle, triumph, and our place in the world. That same impulse to connect across time and space is why a play written a hundred years ago can still feel incredibly relevant today. The conversation never ends; it only changes form, from cave walls to canvases to a stage.

This is why we are so moved by timeless art: because the creators were pioneers of emotion. They were not just documenting the world, but translating feeling into form. Look at a painting by Vincent van Gogh. He didn’t merely paint a scene; he captured the soul of it. In The Starry Night, he gave us not just a sky, but the turbulent awe and desperate longing of a soul grappling with the universe. In his famed Sunflowers, he gave us not just a vase of flowers, but a profound study of life’s fleeting nature, from vibrant, almost explosive life to the slow, inevitable decay of terrible death. He captured the beauty and the tragedy of time itself.

This same principle applies to the timeless playwrights. Consider the work of William Shakespeare. Why do we still stage Hamlet? Because the agonising weight of grief, indecision, and the question of what comes after death is a struggle as real to us as it was to a 16th-century prince. We still weep for Romeo and Juliet's hopeless love, feel the chilling paranoia of Macbeth, and recognise the quiet despair of a Chekhov character watching a world they love fade away. These plays don't survive because of their language alone; they endure because they are perfect vessels for fundamental human emotions. The "textual integrity" of a play isn't in its ancient script, but in the timeless human terror of discovering a horrible truth about yourself, as in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex. We still stage them, often in modern dress and with contemporary soundscapes, because the core conversation between the characters—and the conversation between the play and the audience—is about something so deeply human it can never become obsolete.

This is why theatre is such a primal force. It brings us together in a single space and makes us feel something shared, something ancient. It’s a collective exhale, a moment of recognition that we are all, in this moment, a little less alone. It is a sacred act of connection. In a world increasingly defined by screens and isolation, the act of a hundred people sitting together in the dark, breathing the same air and feeling the same emotions, is a powerful antidote. It reminds us of our shared humanity and our fundamental need for connection. The theatre or an art gallery is not just a building; it is a sacred space of worship where the unspoken language of our souls is spoken without words and understood. Even alone in a room, sharing this language, we are not lonely.

I create theatre because I, too, want to feel less alone. Because when I felt most isolated and didn't think I would ever find a place where I could be safe, theatre gave me a home. Through this art form, I could explore the parts of myself I was afraid to acknowledge, and in doing so, I found a deeper understanding of others. I wanted to pay that gift forward. I wanted to build a space where anyone who enters, whether they are on the stage or in the audience, can feel that same sense of belonging and know, without a single word, that they are not alone. I know this to be true, not just because I believe it, but because I have lived it. When I was an entrant in the Archibald, I had the opportunity on national television to voice my experience of living with trauma. In that moment, through art, my story was no longer just mine. It became a public conversation, a bridge to others who might be feeling the same way.

So the next time you step into a theatre, you aren't just an audience member. In reading this, you are participating in that universal conversation. It's the same whether you're paying for a ticket, visiting an exhibition, or simply appreciating the art on Brisbane power boxes. To truly look and to value art and the artists who create it is to join this global, ageless dialogue. Because without that language, we'd have nothing. Without it, we would truly be alone.

Ultimately, it is through theatre and art that we spark a conversation that transcends the boundaries of space and time, a conversation that whispers: I know you, I see you, you are not alone.

Charlotte x