Namatjira | Big hArt & Riverside Theatres
- February 29th, 2012
- Posted in Reviews & Responses . Uncategorized
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On the pastel wall-papered rooms of my grandparent’s house in Coffs Harbour, three small prints (copies of paintings by Albert Namatjira) hung in silence.
It was the only slight hint at reconciliation between my grandfather (a very protestant whitefella who had been raised as a dairy farmer in Bega) and the original caretakers of this land. White gums and blue mountains were the sole oasis of understanding amongst the hatred and prejudice: the singular meeting point where both white and black saw eye to eye.
The beauty of and respect for the land.
It was many years after his death when it was discovered that though he had been a die-hard racist, his wife (my grandmother) had an indigenous grandfather. And now I see something different, when I look at the Namatjira print, which silently looks over me in my lounge room.
Namatjira’s public story is one which can be easily tracked through encyclopedias and art journals.
A part of the delight and appeal of Big hArt’s production is the docu-drama quality of the show, the wide sprawling facts about Namatjira’s life condensed into a 2 hour show. Additionally, there is the added delight for us to meet Namatjira’s relatives, who are the guardians of his story. They sit and watch, draw and listen to the story of their grandfather every night – and it is with their permission that this story is told. This is a story of their community and their grandfather – it’s personal.
Since its premiere, Big hArt’s production of Namatjira has traveled to several venues, gathering community like a bright comet’s tale wherever it goes. And doumentation of that community building process can be found in James Waites’ blog: http://jameswaites.ilatech.org/?p=5467
Kevin Jackson’s review to the October production at Belvoir is in grand praise of the elements of production – http://kjtheatrereviews.blogspot.com.au/2010/10/namatjira.html
Jason Blake’s review of the Belvoir premier focuses on the cultural significance and production qualities: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/theatre/namatjira-20100930-15z5g.html
And I could very well attempt to summarize all three writers, as I thoroughly concur with their response to this production. But I’d like to acknowledge that this is a major piece of contemporary playwriting.
Despite created in a collaborative process, the play itself is a feat of creative innovation on the part of Scott Rankin. The play traverses several languages, combining self-aware direct address monologues with musical montage, transcripts, re-enactment, re-imaginings.
And production elements aside, which weigh the production with grand gravitas this story deserves, this is an epic piece of storytelling.
However long it has been, forty or sixty thousand years, the indigenous culture is one of long-lived tradition – wherein art is deeply embedded in identity/self, where land is deeply embedded in self, as is art. Three aspects – art/self/land inexorably intertwined. Mix this with the story of a multi-lingual man, who was a cultural leader, a social leader , and yes the first tax-paying citizen from the aboriginal community) – and a person of national and international significance. It carries with it a grand quantity of material, couple that with a main-stage context, a white-dominated theatre and this is not an easy project to shape nor present.
Yet, Rankin has found a tone in the text which is factual, yet irreverent, joyful and yet honours the pain of displacement. We see Namatjira repeated displacements – and then experience our own: The script bounces between our social “white” theatre conventions and the conventions of indigenous storytelling, through re-enactment, historical primary sources, imaginings, symbolism and personal creative response by the artists telling Namatjira’s story and their own story.
On one hand we are juggling contexts:
Audiences bringing their histories and stories to the production.
The Namatjira family bringing their history to the production.
The artists bringing their story and history to the production.
The production is weighing and balancing and manipulating our response, tapping into multiple contexts.
And on the other we are inserted into multiple places and landscapes:
Namatjira on the mission.
Namatjira in the city.
Namatjira in Australia’s Art world.
Namatjira in the World’s Art scene.
And the script sits like a sedimentary rock – layers of ideas – layers of form – layers of perspective. We see what a beautiful and difficult thing culture is – it’s formation, its erosion.
What we learn is exactly that which we learn from ancient Greek histories (Herodotus & Thucydides) and trashy gossip publications (TMZ and The National Enquirer) – success can be a great artist (or leader’s) undoing. (Amy Winehouse, Whitney Houston) We see people crumble under the strain and pressure of the need of others grabbing and taking. We can see in action, how epic success brings epic responsibility. We see how (directly or indirectly) we are responsible for the disintegration of things/culture/ideas/language… and people. BUT at the same time Rankin shows us the possibility of creation/reflection/restoration/interpretation. The healing quality of art.
And whilst watching this production, I was lovingly forced to reflect on Australia’s art and culture… about our current relationship with the indigenous peoples of this land, their culture, their history. I asked myself:
What is cultural legacy?
What does an individual person’s contribution add up to?
What remains? What is lost?
What is translated/translatable?
What resonnates?
What is unique?
What is important?
What are we, as a culture, left with?
A memory? Family? An original watercolour?
Or perhaps a treasured print from the walls of our grandfather’s house?
*****
Please note this show is now on tour –
NEW SOUTH WALES
Riverside Theatres Parramatta, Sydney – 22 – 25 February (Exhibition: The Damien Minton Gallery, 29 Feb – 10 March)
Capitol Theatre, Tamworth, NSW – 28 February
Orange Civic Theatre, NSW – 2 – 3 March
Bathurst Memorial Entertainment Centre, NSW – 7 – 10 March
Civic Precinct Newcastle, NSW – 13 – 14 March (Exhibition: The Lock Up, Newcastle, 2 – 8 March)
Griffith Regional Theatre, NSW – 17 March
Wagga Wagga Civic Theatre, NSW – 21 March
Albury Entertainment Centre, NSW – 24 March
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VICTORIA
Riverlinks, Westside Performing Arts Centre, Shepparton, VIC – 28 March
Esso BHP Billiton Wellington Entertainment Centre, Sale, VIC 24 April
Frankston Arts Centre, VIC – 27 – 28 April
Arts Centre Warragul, VIC – 1 May
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TASMANIA
Burnie Arts and Function Centre, TAS – 4 April (Exhibition: Burnie Regional Art Gallery, 17 – 22 March)
Theatre North Launceston, TAS – 13 – 14 April
Theatre Royal, Hobart, TAS – 18 – 19 April
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SOUTH AUSTRALIA
Adelaide Festival Centre, SA – 4 – 12 May (Exhibition: Artspace Gallery, 14 April – 27 May)
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NORTHERN TERRITORY
Hermannsburg Heritage Precinct, Ntaria, NT – 16 May
Araluan Arts Centre, Alice Springs, NT – 19 May (Exhibition: Talapi Gallery, Alice Springs, Dates TBC)
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QUEENSLAND
Townsville Civic Theatre, QLD – 23 May
Mackay Entertainment and Convention Centre, QLD – 26 May
Rockhampton Venues and Events, QLD 30 May
Hi Gus, I have been promising Big hART since this play opened at Belvoir Street some months ago to write a review. I was given the chance to see it in rehearsal, but am yet to write about the finished product. I traveled to Canberra to see it there with that intention, and also out to Riverside Parramatta as well last week. Each time ‘real life’ annoying has got in the way. It remains on my to-do list. But since I have just made a comment on the Facebook page ‘Towards A Writers Theatre’ about the value of all of us pitching in a bit with more with comments on your site, I guess I should walk the walk.
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.
I’m so sorry I’ve missed this show. Did Belvoir publish the script when it was on there?
Hi Katie,
Yes the script was published by Currency Press – http://www.booknook.com.au/play-scripts-australian/new-australian-plays-2010-11/namatjira-ngapartji-ngapartji
It’s a fascinating text which was referred to several times at The Riverside Theatres as a series of watercolours… I think that’s not quite as I saw it – that analogy sees the text as fragmented. For me it is more multi-layered, than that.
I’m really sorry you missed it, but perhaps it will return this way again?
Thanks for writing James,
You are a pleasure in person, and a pleasure in print.
You have so beautifully articulated and pin-pointed so much about the writing that makes it significant and I think the observation that it is “so deft and subtle, multi-layered and technically finessed” is absolutely spot on…
So much so – I re-read that clumsy blue-print draft of this post, that I re-drafted.
Thank you James. Thank you!