Stand-up comedian Hannah Gadsby has lived her trauma more than 200 times over in front of live audiences.
She knew her 203 performances of her runaway comedy special Nanette would be a "constant re-traumatising experience", she told ABC's One Plus One with Rosie Batty.
Nanette, which aired on Netflix in 2018, detailed Gadsby's experiences with sexism, homophobia and the nature of trauma.
Gadsby has been nominated for four Emmys, two in 2019 for Nanette and two in 2020 for her follow-up special Douglas.
Nanette was such an international success that she won the Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special in 2019.
Throughout her performances of Nanette, she began with jokes about her life before returning to the same anecdotes and detailing the traumatic moments behind them, where in some instances she suffered violence and assaults.
When she revisited this same story, she shared more detail and told it "properly."
She told Batty, who has been vocal about her own struggles reliving trauma through sharing stories, there were times she struggled to contain her physical distress on stage and others where she felt powerful.
"I was both in control of it and not, I felt connected to the world in a way that I’d never managed to do before."
Growing up in regional Tasmania
Gadsby said the debate around decriminalising homosexuality in Tasmania from 1989 to 1997 imprinted her formative years.
"If they'd have just changed the laws I perhaps might not have known that there was this law and it could have impacted on the way that people view me and the way I live my life."
She said the "dehumanising language" and the "way that they did not care about the humans that those laws impacted" had been the "most striking part."
The experience of Nanette
Gadsby said she "fiddled around" with the rules of comedy to create a striking experience for her audiences.
"Early in the show I tell a funny story about being mistaken for a gay man by a man who thought I was hitting on his girlfriend, and so I very deliberately built that up to be a funny story."
She revealed later in the show that, in that instance, she had been a victim of a hate crime and beaten.
"I let the audience sit in that and feel complicit in what had happened to me and for laughing at what had happened to me.
Showing others a way to find their voice
As a voice for people with disability, survivors of violence and the LGBTQIA+ community, Gadsby said the best she could do was be honest about her own experiences.
"I cannot be responsible for other people's voices or experiences, the best I can do is my best.
You can watch Hannah Gadsby's full interview on One Plus One with Rosie Batty on ABC TV Thursday at 9.30pm.
