“Error begat error, and the events which led to the disaster moved with the inevitability of a Greek tragedy.”
Those are
the last words in the final report of the Royal Commission into the collapse of
the West Gate Bridge in Melbourne in 1970. It remains the worst industrial
accident to have ever happened in Australia and it led to a lot of reforms around
safety in the building trade.
For such a
vital piece of Australian history, there are no TV mini-series about the events
of that fateful day. A documentary about the disaster was released in 2020 on
the 50th anniversary, directed and narrated by Shane Jacobsen. A
recent film, Westgate, investigates generational trauma decades after the
collapse, but I wouldn’t be surprised if many Melburnians don’t know that it
happend.
Dennis
McIntosh’s play, which opened at Melbourne Theatre Company’s Southbank Theatre
last night, tackles events leading up to the bridge collapsing and the
immediate aftermath. We are introduced to workmen on the site – recent migrants
and Aussie blokes whose families have been in Australia for generations – and engineers
from the British company who designed the West Gate. They are all portrayed –
with their thick British accents – as recent arrivals, too.
Though the work has been designed as an ensemble piece, the most compelling drama is through the burgeoning
mateship between Italian migrant Victor (Steve Bastoni) and a British
roustabout known by the nickname Young Scrapper (Darcy Kent, magnificent in his
MTC debut). He’s changed the name on his union card to distance himself from
his imprisoned dad, while Victor is a proud family man from a long line of
Vittorios, dedicated to this job to keep food on the table. His wife, Frankie
(Daniela Farinacci), is pregnant, so you can see where this is headed from a
mile away.
Rumours are
already swirling around the western suburbs about some danger on the site, and
concern becomes more widespread when a bridge designed by the same company
collapses in Wales. Yes, like a true Greek tragedy, McIntosh’s play knows that
we know it’s coming. It’s only a question of when.
The conflicts we see amongst the workers mostly comes as scathing nicknames and racial epithets, but more charged is the conflict between foreman and the Company Men, all in suits, shouting about how it will be different this time. Just trust them.
The strong
ensemble gives it their all, but the characterisations are mostly reduced to
types. An early scene that includes a rollcall of names – which will be poignantly
echoed later after a search for the missing – feels full of life, with Pat
(Rohan Nichol) having a laugh trying to keep his men in line. But a lot of the
scenes after that are two-handers or three-handers and the camaraderie is lost while
we wait for the inevitable.
Director
Iain Sinclair has worked with many of these actors before, including in the
acclaimed MTC production of A View from the Bridge in 2019. But beyond
the endearing, evolving friendship between Victor and Young Scrapper – and some
more emotional scenes in the second half with Victor’s wife, Frankie – the real
stars of the show are designers Christina Smith (set and costume), Kelly Ryall
(sound and score) and Niklas Pajanti (lighting). Sinclair’s production of Bridge
and his recent take on Hamlet at Fortyfive Downstairs have been very affecting
with their minimalist design choices. West Gate continues that trend.
Much of the
first half of the show is played under a looming concrete pylon, staring down
at the actors and the audience like the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The lighting grid rises and falls, depending where the workers are on the
bridge, an effective way to give the whole thing an industrial look without too
many added extras. Smith’s costumes capture a late-60s working class aesthetic effortlessly, having most fun
with appearance of footy socks and guernsey celebrating the Footscray Bulldogs (as
they were known at the time).
Ryall gives
us the creaks and groans of steel and concreate, along with the noises of
hammering and welding to put us right in the middle of the action. Pajanti’s
lighting is mostly neat squares early in the show, when things are under control.
When the bridge comes down, though, the designers’ work in concert to rock and
rumble the whole theatre – with a surround sound design that’s genuinely
terrifying.
Pajanti
also finds a way to use shadows and blacks against us in a theatre that’s
ostensibly fully dark: echoing the confusion the men must have felt during the
commotion with plumes of smoke and dust disorienting them.
It’s an
astonishing moment, which unfortunately – because it felt like the natural
place for an interval – led to a lot of applause in the theatre. Listening to
an audience applaud the deaths of thirty-five men was an odd moment, especially
knowing there would have been friends and relatives of the victims in the
theatre last night, too.
Why not have
a break in the show at that point? Well, the survivors didn’t get a break, I
suppose. They struggled to find new jobs, with many of them hoping to finish
off the bridge so the tragedy wasn’t in vain. Intervals release tension and
Sinclair wants us to stay trapped with the characters for a little while
longer.
The second
half of the play does allow for more complex relationships to play out, against
the days and weeks that followed. Premier Henry Bolte convened a Royal Commission
two weeks after the collapse; which lends some irony to the fact that Bolte is
memorialised by another bridge named in his honour. What happens during and
after the commission is the basis of much of the conflict from here on out.
The vision of
the play is clear: these working men were victims of bureaucracy even though
their deaths were labelled as “misadventure”. It’s an important historical
story of this city and it’s great to see Melbourne Theatre Company supporting
this kind of work, written by someone who grew up in the shadow of that half-built
bridge. It’s a shame that dramatically it alludes to a class divide without
interrogating it deeply, indulges in racial language of the time for “realism” and
has a penchant for labelling every know-it-all as a “Barry Jones”, which was
funny once but not the third and fourth time.
Director
Sinclair fashions a robust production though, which creates visceral moments of
anguish and pain, and finds room for touching moments as the workmen grapple
with their own grief while reaching out to the families of the men who died on
the bridge.
- Keith Gow, Theatre First
West Gate runs at Southbank Theatre until April 18
Photos: Pia Johnson
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