About The Play

Things That Matter

was commissioned by Auckland Theatre Company and adapted by Gary Henderson from the memoir Things That Matter: Stories of Life & Death by Dr

David Galler.

This new New Zealand play centres around Dr Rafal (Raf) Beckman, his medical team, and the patients in the intensive care unit at Auckland’s Middlemore Hospital.

While Rafal juggles the pressures of running the ICU in the overcrowded and understaffed hospital with his role as an advisor to the Minister of Health, he also struggles with feelings of guilt towards his family, particularly his terminally ill mother, Roza, a Holocaust survivor.

As the play progresses, we learn about the pressing issues of our health system, from underfunding to systemic racism and how the staff and patients are affected. But Rafal’s compassion towards his patients and their families never waivers and by the end of the play he learns to accept his own grief and loss.