Fear Of The Unknown

Witkop’s play Out Of Fear follows Travis, who escapes the city to begin a new life in the outback with his wife and two sons. It doesn’t all go to plan however, and Travis encounters a mysterious figure known only as “The Man”, a wandering stranger who tries to figure out the reason why he is there.

The play also explores the psychological exposition of Travis, who is trapped by his own issues of guilt and delusion in his struggle with mental illness – themes that Witkop thinks Australian plays don’t explore too often. “When you look at great films like Walkabout or Wake In Fright, they presented a very harsh, wild and unforgiving Australia, that sort of represent the character’s psyche as they grow more and more mad,” he says. “I get the feeling that we get too bogged down in the ‘little Aussie battler’ stories, and tend to forget about personal battles inside us.”

Born out of both intrigue and a desire to get his message out, the play was inspired by separate mental illness-related incidents in Melbourne which saw a father throw his four-year-old daughter off the West Gate Bridge to her death and another fatally assault his 11-year-old son at a local cricket ground. “I started researching newspaper articles and the almost weekly reports about domestic abuse and violence occurring not only in Australia but overseas as well. What shook me was that these acts of violence were committed mostly by men,” says Witkop.

The stigma attached to mental illness is another point which Out Of Fear draws attention to, with Witkop’s own personal battle with mental illness forming part of the inspiration for the play. “I never experienced extreme domestic abuse [though] I do however suffer from depression, and felt that this was something that we need to be aware of. And there is a growing awareness happening right now, and that there should be no blame in this matter.”