“Keep your cool. Give ‘em HELL!” Ronald Dale Barassi (27 February 1936 – 16 September 2023)
Attending my bio-character’s funeral recently meant that I was paying my last respects to a man I did not know, but who had lived in my head for years.
It was a complicated mourning on that hot day, sitting in the plastic seats of the Melbourne Cricket Ground where many of Barassi’s major sporting achievements had occurred, surrounded by five thousand of his fans.
I realised I knew more about Ron Barassi than I knew about my own brothers.
Image: Barassi flies through in 1969. Credit: FAIRFAX
I only met Barassi to interview him twice. His dementia meant that many of my questions about his early career went unanswered. But I had spent two years of my life reading biographies about this iconic Australian football coach (and ex player), watching documentaries and Youtube clips, and interviewing his friends, colleagues and enemies, in order to create a stage version of the man’s life.
I had analysed his choices, judged his character, and selected pivotal life-moments to arrange into dramatic scenes. I had dived deep into Barrasi’s psyche, seeking out his ethical, thematic, and dramatic concerns, while navigating the needs of both those audience members who knew him well and those that didn’t know him at all.
I knew a lot about the facts. However, I had the strange sensation of having many of my subtler insights confirmed by his friends, colleagues and family, when it came to the eulogies. What moved me the most was the words clearly written from the heart about the smaller moments in the man’s life – and this got me thinking further about the bio-dramatist’s art.
Image: ‘A Portrait of Ron Barassi’ by Ronald John Neal
While the dramatist looks for actions that reveal character, the eulogist recalls the moments that stood out to them as significant – an argument they had on holiday in Greece, or being instructed to get up off the ground to keep fighting a bully, or playing an interminable game of chess that Barassi would never let anyone lose. The speeches that stood out were the ones where the speaker was remembering, with honesty, who they were at the time, in their interactions with the dead sportsman; and how this had shaped who they are today. They were candid about the complexity of their love/feelings for the deceased. It was a sacred offering of private moments made public.
Yes, Barassi’s sporting, charitable and bravery awards were often mentioned; but it was the seemingly insignificant, personal moments the eulogists spoke of that carried emotional weight and revealed complexity.
Image: Barassi reacts during coaching duties for North Melbourne in 1979. Credit:THE AGE
It occurred to me that a bio-dramatist can learn from heartfelt eulogies about their bio-character: moments that track these unforgettable connections with the deceased. Those momentary, everyday memories of human-to-human encounter that really stick.
Barassi advised his footballers, ‘Keep your cool!’ As bio-dramatists we need to strategize with a detached empathy as we construct our drama and edit the many drafts. But the second part of the coach’s catch-cry was ‘Give ‘em HELL!’ In a bio-dramatist’s terms, that is to take the audience on an emotional journey: sharing insight into how their protagonist affected the people around them, deeply and in a long-term way. What was their legacy on a personal scale?
Try to uncover surprisingly small moments of unforgettable connection, to ensure your audiences are touched deeply by your bio-character’s life. You might even consider: if you’re writing about somebody who has passed away, can you access any public records of your bio-character’s funeral?