Namatjira has garnered much praise: but mostly the talk has been of Jamieson’s performance, the staging and what the cultural issues are that the script/production raises. You are the first to say something about the script. Which, in my view, is so deft and subtle, multi-layered and technically finessed, so strategically effective that it seems to pass us by unnoticed. Scott Rankin the writer (as well as director) doing his finest – ‘Look Kids No Hands!”

The concept and script for Namatjira are more obviously ‘commercial’ or ‘mainstream’ than that of Big hART’S previous major work, Ngapartji Ngapartji. But that is to the purpose: this isn’t so much a festival art piece, or formal experiment, as a work to take to as many people as possible to feel and perhaps re-think. Namatjira is ABOUT something, but also so well put together it happens to BECOME SOMETHING in its own right too. To my understanding, that IS one of the several long-standing definitions of a work of art.

(Counter-intuitively) to articulate the play’s bold thoughts on Anglo-Aboriginal relations – past and present – as well as simply tell the Namatjira story, writer (also director) Scott Rankin has come up with a script that feels oh simple and easy, yet in fact is engineered to the highest degree. It is a very rare Australian example of superb playwriting craft.

Unfortunately for Sydney readers, if you have not been along, you have now missed this excellent play/production twice. If you are passing through any of the other locations cited above by Augusta, however, I recommend you take up the chance.

One only has to experience the first 20 minutes where there’s lots of cute wordplay that deliberately mocks (ever so gently) our many fears we Whitefellas face when confronted with anything vaguely Aboriginal. Much less something or someone really Aboriginal!

One example: ‘Why do we call our children by Italian or French or traditionally English names ‘like Nigel’ – but never by one of the many beautiful Aboriginal names like Makinti?’ Fair call.

Then, by way of Rankin’s script, leading actor Trevor Jamieson jokingly riffs – impersonating a progessive white inner-city couple: “Do you think we need permission (to use an Aboriginal name)? Is there a Naming Protocol Adviser we can contact? Or when one of Namatjira’s kids asks Dad: ‘What’s this Walkabout’ And the artist says ‘I don’t know, it’s something Whitefellas think we do. Might come in handy some day.’

There’s lots and lots of this kind of stuff. All so light and by the way, but massive in its effect in embracing and drawing in the audience so we feel safe in the production’s hands. And we are. We drop our guard and, without ever distressing us, Rankin’s script then takes us to a whole pile of big-issue places. A couple of song and dance numbers, and even a bit of drag thrown in for good luck.

If I can share your views Augusta, in the context of current Australian playwriting, the script of Namatjira is everything Babyteeth is not.