CAST
This is the cast of STAGE. We are grateful for their contribution to the making of our film and bringing the writing to the screen.
GRANDFATHER
Paul
YOUNG MARILYN
Eve
MARILYN
Gabriella
Marilyn’s Grandfather is a symbol of safety, comfort and unconditional love in Marilyn’s early life. His gentle humour and grounding presence gave her emotional stability before her descent into depression and anxiety. He lives in nostalgic, colour-rich memories, a space where Marilyn felt fully seen. As well as haunting Marilyn’s dark, intrusive memories, driving his absence and pulling Marilyn back to the real world. He is the emotional root of her internal narrative, anchoring the world of trauma and memory.
An eight-year old Marilyn and a symbolic extension of Marilyn’s inner self; vulnerable and distanced from reality, a world that demands composure. She lives in the liminal spaces and she represents the suppressed emotions and psychological states Marilyn stifles. Always dressed in her school uniform and singing ‘Ring-a-Ring-a-Roses,’ she mirrors Marilyn’s nostalgic longing and emotional fragmentation. A visual motif for memory, trauma and the cyclical nature of mental distress. She is both past and present, an embodiment of the silent scream of Marilyn’s anxiety.
A twenty-something woman who performs emotional resilience while silently suffering from anxiety disorder. Sophisticated and composed on the outside, she is internally unravelled by unresolved grief, intrusive memories and societal expectations. Her childhood connection with her grandfather was her happy place, a time before masking her mental health became second nature. Now she is trapped in a performative cycle, trying to navigate the landscape of her symptoms that have been diagnosed as ‘overthinking.’ Her silence is both a symptom and critique of being unheard.
Lauren
Pete
Meg
Solfella
THE DIRECTOR
The Director symbolises patriarchal authority and the medical industry’s tendency to dismiss women’s mental health. Detached and performative, he praises Marilyn’s acting oblivious to its authenticity. He represents a culture that commodifies emotional pain. He tells his crew, ‘Let’s not make her overthink it’ embodying the systemic trivialisation reduces trauma into spectacle and reinforcing the film’s feminist critique of institutionalised dismissal.
Lauren