One of the disappointing things about theatre in this country in recent years is how siloed the big cities have felt. The only shows to tour are big and commercial and the state theatre companies have been co-producing less and buying in fewer productions from their counterparts. Most of this is financial in nature – with budgets already stretched, staying at home feels like the better option. Some of the structures for regional touring have disappeared since the pandemic as well.
Things are
starting to right themselves or, at least, companies are finding more reason to
share the love (and the workload). With the shifting of some artistic directors,
next year Sydney is hosting a number of shows that started life in other
states. Melbourne is being mostly steadfast in showcasing local work, though
MTC is co-producing A Room with a View with Belvoir and the
Malthouse is staging Griffin Theatre’s Koreaboo, which is later touring
to Queensland.
This has
meant that some shows I felt like we would have seen in Melbourne, we missed entirely.
Most egregiously, I think, we never saw STC’s production of The Visitors
by Jane Harrison, which has toured across Australia and is off to New York next
year. It did drop into several outer suburban theatres and I saw it in Geelong,
but I am so puzzled that Melbourne never saw it.
Similarly,
Griffin Theatre’s production of Whitefella Yella Tree, which first
appeared in 2022. A two-hander about queer indigenous teenage boys that got
rave reviews seemed like a shoe-in to tour the country. Finally, this year, the
show was revived by Griffin as a jumping off point for a mini-tour to La Boite
in Brisbane, UMAC in Melbourne and the Adelaide Festival in 2026.
But while
the Sydney return season was a month at STC and Brisbane got it for two weeks, Whitefella
Yella Tree was on in Melbourne for three nights only. Theatre is ephemeral
enough. This feels a bit like an insult.
That said,
it has cemented the theatre programming at UMAC as place to watch. Virginia
Lovett has brought in several shows as part of Rising, that Melbourne wouldn’t
have seen otherwise: Belvoir’s epic Counting and Cracking and Amplified,
about Chrissy Amphlett, both of which had short runs. Bravo to Virginia for
getting these shows in at all – any show that gets to live on in another state,
even briefly, should be celebrated.
And I’m so glad
to have caught it on the opening night of its short run. Dylan Van Den Berg’s
play is like the younger, queerer cousin of The Visitors. Instead of a
group of elders defined by their meeting place though, these two boys – messengers
for their two tribal groups – are learning to be men and discovering their
sexuality. They are dressed in outfits from Clothing the Gap and the vernacular
is modern, even though the story is set in the early days of European
colonisation.
The opening scenes between Ty and Eddy meeting are energetic and sweet: telling stories of
their families and the country on which they live. And as they start to get romantically
and sexually interested in each other, it was so refreshing that in a story
about masculinity and growing up, their queerness wasn’t an issue. They weren’t
scared of it or put at odds because of it. They both talk about bringing the
other boy home to meet their parents. A queer coming out story without the
burden of trauma? Almost, but not quiet.
Van Den
Berg’s text makes it clear: the real trouble comes from the colonial invasion
and the colonisers’ own belief system. Not just because their land is being
stolen, or their families are being killed – their gender and sexual expression
is a sin in the eyes of the crowds of white men and women scurrying across
their lands.
Griffin
Artistic Director Declan Green has worked with Wiradjuri/Worimi director, Amy
Sole, to craft a ninety-minute show that starts like a romantic comedy and ends
somewhere much darker. The strength and resilience of these two characters reflect
the ongoing struggles of indigenous peoples in this country to this very day, while
also grappling with the very specific erasure of the queer Aboriginal
experience.
Mason
Browne’s simple design is evocative of the harsh natural landscape of Australia’s
outback with the titular “whitefella yella tree” (a lemon tree) hanging in the middle like a haunting spectre.
Steve Toulmin’s
sound design is deceptively simple early on, layering in more and more foreign
sounds as the invaders get closer. Effects layered over Ty’s voice as he starts
to lose the history of his people – unable to articulate the loss of his people
as well, is devastating.
Katie
Sfetkidis and Kelsey Lee have conceived a lighting design with a rich, deep palette
of colours – along with spotlights to rattle the audience where we sit and occasional
unnerving blackouts.
Some of the
energy dissipates in the second half. The reiteration of the encroaching white
population and the ongoing devastation of the local indigenous population – both
physically and mentally – starts to take its toll on the show itself. There are
heavy moments of revelation as the show barrels toward the end that felt a
little too repetitive.
But the
show does wind up to be a beautiful meditation on love and loss and the devastating
effects of colonialism on a community we don’t always consider – the queer
black population of so-called Australia.
I really wish
it was in Melbourne for more than three days.
- Keith Gow, Theatre First
Photos: Prudence Upton
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