Emily Rose Brennan. Image supplied by Rock Surfers Theatre Company.
This is a group–devised script made by a cast of comedians and pulled together somehow by writer/director Benedict Hardie. Originally based in Melbourne, The Hayloft Project has created some landmark work and, after Simon Stone’s compelling Thyestes, I’d go anywhere to see them.
Now based in Sydney, Hayloft has teamed with the Rock Surfers Company at Bondi Pavilion Theatre. Appropriately they are staging this play about boats and immigration on the shores of Australia’s most iconic beach.
Middle Eastern refugees Sarah (Susie Youssef) and Karl (William Erimya) crossed the ocean and met in Villawood. Now she runs a successful catering business called Fresh from the Boat with naughtily named culinary delights – like a Manus burger and a refreshing Scott Morrison. Guilt, she argues, helps build customer loyalty.
Our empathies around this horrendous asylum seeker issue are further shifted when an interview with a journalist (a very credible Emily Rose Brennan as Melanie) reveals that possibly Sarah isn’t even a boat person.
But there is something authentic about husband Karl. He supposedly runs the finances but his infantile delight in action movies and buffoonery hides a deeper pain. Sarah’s fitness coach, and sexual plaything, Shane (a gangly Luke Joseph Ryan) completes the line up of mad emasculated men.
Boat People charts Sarah’s rise and rise, eventually to high political office, and crackles with sharp wit and observation. The characters are without racial cliché and our sympathies are stretched unpredictably. Youssef is cool and suitably ambiguous as Sarah and the debates between the two women (Melanie becomes her top communications gun) believable and interesting.
The men provide contrasting slapstick comedy which, while enlarging the scope of the play, should be better integrated into its narrative.
Designer Michael Hankin converts the simple stage area into a wealthy glass lookout of privilege, dominated by a huge sofa which, while initially suggesting a long boat, transforms finally into corporate power.
This is an ambitious play, one bringing welcome new wit and perspective to a profoundly entrenched and awkward Australian issue. It needs now the razor of an editor, especially in the conclusion, and a director to close up its gaps and comic self-indulgence.
Rating: 3 ½ out of 5 stars
The Boat People
The Hayloft Project/Rock Surfers Theatre Company
Writer/Director: Benedict Hardie
Co-devised and performed by Susie Youssef, William Erimya, Emily Rose Brennan and Luke Joseph Ryan
Dramaturg: Phil Spencer
Set Design: Michael Hankin
Lighting Design: Verity Hampson
Costume Design: Elizabeth Gadsby
Score & Sound Design: Benny Davis
Production Manager: Michelle McKenzie
Devising credit: Holly Austin
Bondi Pavilion Theatre, Queen Elizabeth Drive, Bondi Beach
www.rocksurfers.org
29 May – 21 June
