The story of the “white woman of Gippsland” is an important one for the Gunaikurnai mob, whose land stretches from what the colonisers call Wilson’s Prom to Point Hicks – and as far north as the Great Dividing Range.
It’s not a
story I’ve heard, not surprisingly, because it’s a piece of Victoria’s colonial
history that is important to the local First Nation’s community because it was
so devastating to them. The search for a white woman, who was shipwrecked off
the cost and kidnapped by the “natives”, led to persecution, imprisonment and
death.
It’s a
stain on our history and, as we should always keep in front of our mind, a
stain on our present. Black deaths in custody continue to be one of the shames
of so-called Australia.
Playwright
Andrea James was inspired to write this play based on a story that was
passed down through oral traditions, to interrogate the truths and histories
that are and are not taught in schools or remembered beyond the communities it
tore apart. Who was this woman? Where did she come from? Where did she go? And
who was responsible?
Jacinta
(Chenoa Deemal) is an Indigenous Thinker – a blakademic, hoping to write a PhD
about this mysterious white woman. She’s challenged by her Aunty Rochelle (Ursula
Yovich), who is desperate for help around the house and cannot understand
Jacinta’s need to spend years on a story she already knows.
She’s challenged
by her faculty supervisor (Ian Bliss, tackling all the white male coloniser
roles), who is desperate for her to support the story with already published
work of white men and venerated historians. He urges her to speak to the
University’s ethics committee before she asks her aunts and uncles to tell
their family histories, without thought to how First Nations’ people share these things.
"It's a lot of cuppas," Jacinta explains.
Digging into the past, trying to uncover the truth and weed out the biases of the people who landed here and killed, tortured and displaced the Gunaikurni people, is fascinating. It is the other side of the coin to the excellent The Visitors by Jane Harrison, which told the story of the First Fleet arriving from the point of view of the local mobs around the place now known as Botany Bay.
Harrison used coloniser diaries to support her imagined history, where Andrea
James is challenging the structures of tertiary education and accepted kinds of
learning and teaching. She’s digging into history, by telling the story of a
woman struggling to find the truth and record it.
There’s added
drama layered over Jacinta writing headlong toward a deadline, when she decides
to hole-up in a motel to cut herself off from the world. This sends aunt
Rochelle into justified panic, scared that something has happened to her. She
doesn’t trust the locals to keep an eye out for a black woman – and she
certainly doesn’t trust the cops, especially the one who left Jacinta’s mother to
die in a police cell, gasping for air.
This conflict
with the cop (Ian Bliss) gives us interesting context for the family, their circumstances
and rather starkly puts into perspective how First Nations people have been
treated by the law for centuries. Jacinta relates the story of police hunting
for the “white woman of Gippsland” with the help of Gunnakurnai men, who were
in it for the feed.
As the police
investigation continues to stall, the constabulary are desperate for answers
and ready to pin it on whoever they decide seems most guilty. They run with a
story and the consequences are devastating.
The
Black Woman of Gippsland is a fascinating window into local history and the impossible situation
black historians and writers are in if they want to record the stories of their
family and their people. Andrea James has directed her own work and she has a
clear vision; the work is expertly crafted.
Deemal’s
performance enlivens a tricky dramatic conceit; for most of the play she’s
trapped in a motel room trying to make sense of the pieces of the puzzle she’s
putting together. AV Designer Rhian Hinkley elevates the motions of drawing a
map and pinning clues to the wall into epic digital choreography, drawing us into
that room and helping to outline a complex and complicated narrative.
Hinkley’s
work is expertly married with Verity Hampson’s evocative lighting. James Henry’s
sound design and composition adds further depth and clarity to moments of
imagination, dreaming and thinking things over.
Ursuala Yovich and Ian Bliss sparring as concerned aunt and disgruntled cop is potent, but this story thread peters out because we as the audience know that Jacinta is all right – and the real driving force of the play is what Jacinta will uncover about the past. There are resonances between past and present, which dovetail toward the end, but summing everything up at an academic conference is a bit of a letdown.
Small quibbles with the dramatic shape of the show aside, unpicking local history and
casting it into a wider context is – in moments – thrilling and decidedly upsetting.
This show looks beautiful throughout, as it grows from three simple
performances places into a grand liminal space that echoes the thoughts, feelings
and dreaming of Jacinta and the Gunaikurnai.
The
Black Woman of Gippsland is powerful, compelling and beautifully realised.
- Keith Gow, Theatre First
The play is on at Melbourne Theatre Company as part of Yirramboi until May 31
Photos: Pia Johnson
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