Faith, a proud Batjala (Butchulla) woman, is welcomed on stage to our applause. She speaks about language and cultural memory and how she’s had to help rebuild the dialect of her people, because of colonisation and the slow erosion of tradition. She was educated at Monash University and has travelled the world and, in retirement, she has returned to her ancestral home in Queensland.
The
lecture, it turns out, is part memory, part confusion. Faith has dementia and
her daughter, Karma, and grand-daughter, Hope, have travelled to her home to
help her find a suitable place in aged care. Faith and Karma are at odds
because of Faith’s illness and because of long-seeded conflicts from Karma’s
upbringing, which saw her split time between mum and dad and dozens of primary
schools. They have become estranged and Faith jokes with Hope that she’s been
living in Melbourne too long – “you’re so pale”, though that holds a deeper
truth they glide over for now.
The trio
get along pretty well, though they have their generational and cultural
divides. Where Faith holds to wisdom that has been passed down for centuries,
Hope finds comfort in a mix of new-aged crystals and buzz words she’s heard online
somewhere. Karma, though, doesn’t have time to wrestle with the great questions
of the universe; she must be pragmatic. She has to pack up the house, deal with
Centrelink and make sure mum doesn’t burn the place down before she is moved
into care.
Kamarra
Bell-Wykes’ new play, Before I Forget, is based on the story of her own
mother who, like Faith, was a linguist who helped reforge a language that
was slipping out of use. The play is centred on a group of First Nations women,
led by a powerful matriarch, who is disappearing before their eyes. For a
community whose history is passed down by song and storytelling, losing a vital
part of that history to dementia becomes debilitating for all of them. For all
the joy and strength in these characters, having them all experience Faith’s
slow decline was heavy and heartbreaking.
My own father
was diagnosed with dementia earlier this year and Bell-Wykes’ details of
dealing with this very specific situation rang true and loud in my ears. It was
hard enough watching Faith become confused or detached or upset when she didn’t
know why, but to see Karma forced to be strong, to watch her deal with government
bureaucracy and agonise with the character as she grappled with end-of-life care forms was overwhelming. I knew what I was getting myself in for
subject-wise, but this is the kind of life-reflecting detail I didn’t expect to
get hit in the chest with.
I can’t put
aside my own personal and very current experience when writing about this show.
There were sobs throughout and across the audience. This is a deeply
affecting work and you could hear the cheers and tears of recognition
throughout; for as much as the work is devastating, there is an astonishing
sense of strength and resilience as well.
Roxanne
McDonald gives us a Faith full of passion and humour and frank honesty, who is
so deeply affective when her façade starts to crumble. Tyallah Bullock presents a Hope
who is at an age where she thinks she has found her feet away from family, but
discovers she still has a lot to learn. Bullock brings a charming warmth to the
role, which starts out as pleasingly goofy until the divide between her and her
mother starts to widen.
It’s
Melodie Reynolds-Diarra’s show, though. Karma is daughter and mother, trapped by
her obligation to the generation on either side of her. She is desperate to
remain soft even as she’s forced to get hard and put her foot down. All three
women have had to deal with abusive or absentee men in their lives, and Karma
is determined to be a circuit breaker and solve everyone’s problems. But she
needs help too. Reynolds-Diarra delivers a performance that is steely and
brittle all at once. We are on the edge of our seat as she holds it together
just long enough.
The late
appearance of Jet (Nathan Wright), Karma’s dirtbag brother, feels a little too much like a trick
to ratchet up dramatic tension, rather than an honest expansion of the three-hander
that is most of the play. It’s not that Jet doesn’t feel real – sometimes a
shitcunt is a shitcunt, it’s that his arrival interferes with a more
captivating play about women and their responsibility to each other. The
trouble with the men in their lives is implied subtly and effectively, and having Jet
burst in felt like an unnecessary intrusion.
Sophie
Woodward’s set is a ramshackle house, spread out in front of us, a hint of the
hills and a jagged stretch of sky at the back. Coupled with Katie Sfetkidis’
masterful lighting, we are with these characters, in this house and its
overgrown backyard, through the days and nights they struggle through, watching
Faith slowly fade as the sun does.
Before I
Forget is an ode to
Kamarra Bell-Wykes’ mother, the language and community of their country, the
passing on of wisdom and the slow destruction of a life by dementia. It’s also
about reckoning with history: that which you’ve forged yourself and that which
has been forced upon you. And if all you’ve got left is time, don’t waste it.
This is an
extraordinary piece of theatre – poetic, heartbreaking and life-affirming.
Before I Forget is playing at Arts Centre Melbourne in the Fairfax Theatre until November 28
Photographs: Pia Johnson
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