“I wish this play didn’t have to exist,’ says director Lee Lewis. As an audience, sitting in the pitch blackness listening to a metal bar beat down on the ground as a son rages and a mother howls, you think ‘I wish I didn’t have to be here’.
But confrontation is vital.
Such is the theme at the heart of this very impressive debut work by Belvoir’s young and impassioned associate playwright, Nakkiah Lui. Born of her experience growing up in the Dhurag community in Western Sydney, This Heaven, set in Mt. Druitt, crackles and flares with a knowingness of place and desperation. ‘This houso was our home,’ proclaims Sissy (Jada Alberts). Fittingly, it would seem Lui has written a sense of herself into this character: a gutsy Aboriginal law student in her final year set to blaze into the world and set it straight. The sudden and tragic death of her father does not throw her off course. But the unjust proceedings surrounding his death do.
Sissy’s father, Robert Gordon, and her brother Ducky (Travis Cardona) were taken in for questioning after crashing a car into a fence, supposedly under the influence. Robert dies in his cell. A post-mortem examination reveals his death was less likely the result of the crash and more likely the result of a police bashing. Ducky was present and Ducky survives but Ducky is blind and his testimony falls on deaf ears.
A non-disclosure settlement, a paltry sum, is offered by the state to silence the grieving family. Their lawyer (Eden Falk), honest and hard-working if not somewhat misguided, advises against appealing. The bleakness of their situation is utterly, wrenchingly demoralising. They rage.
‘Rage is blind. Rage is speechless,’ wrote Germaine Greer in her contribution to the Little Books on Big Themes series. ‘Someone like me,’ she continues, ‘who has spent my whole life explaining myself, cannot be afflicted with rage. Anyone who pleads, argues, expounds, demonstrates, has to be moved by love and optimism. The fact that you’re still talking means you have faith in the person listening to you. Rage is what happens when you have no choice, when stop believing that there is any point.’
This play traps its characters in a dark, airless headspace and the whole cast rises to the challenge with raw, full-blooded performances. Lee’s direction is tight and the stagecraft elements work well within the constraints of the small performance space.
The aftermath of Sissy and Ducky’s raging writes itself onto the ugly, storied face of their community. To call the kind of violence and vandalism endemic to a place like Mt. Druitt ‘senseless acts’, is to miss the point. Violence and vandalism are means of expression, desperate and flawed but means nonetheless. ‘I wrote this play instead of throwing a Molotov cocktail,’ says Lui. Thankfully she still has a choice.
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
This Heaven
By Nakkiah Lui
Director: Lee Lewis
Set & Costume Designer: Sophie Fletcher with Alice Babidge
Lighting Designer: Luiz Pampolha
Composer: Steve Francis
Sound Designer: Nate Edmondson
Stage Manager: Khym Scott
Cast: Jada Alberts, Joshua Anderson, Travis Cardona, Eden Falk and Tessa Rose
Running Time: Approx 1 hour 10 mins (no interval)
Belvoir St Theatre, Surry Hills
7 February – 10 March
