Maitland Schnaars and Meyne Wyatt. Photo: Brett Boardman
Angry. Impassioned. Raw. Intense. Meyne Wyatt’s part-autobiographical City of Gold is all of these things, and more. Barely disguised as the play’s main character, 20-something actor and Wongi man Breythe, this is Wyatt’s yell of rage and pain about what it is to be an Indigenous person in today’s Australia. It is at not at all subtle, but then there is nothing subtle about racism.
We meet Breythe shooting an Australia Day commercial. He’s a spear-carrying (the director wants him “to feel empowered”), loincloth-clad Aboriginal tracker and he’s about to bond with an equally parodied 19th-century officer in full colonial regalia over a couple of “I love lamb” chops. It’s cringeworthily funny, and we feel for Breythe. Don’t expect too much more in the way of humour though, this play is deadly serious.
Disillusioned but not surprised by the stereotyping, Breythe abandons the shoot to go back home to Kalgoorlie (“the most racist town in Australia”) because his dad has just died. When he arrives, the town is on high alert as the Indigenous population are protesting against police brutality and the riot squad’s been called in. Breythe’s sister Carina (Shari Sebbens), also grief-stricken at her father’s death, is attempting to pour some oil on troubled waters and set the record straight about the right to protest and organise a funeral. His brother Mateo (Mathew Cooper) is cynical about Breythe’s return. As far as he’s concerned, it’s too little too late – he should have been there, not gallivanting around in white man’s world.
Breythe, who doesn’t identify with that world but still wants to succeed in it, finds himself alienated from his brother, his country and his lore. What kind of blackfella is he? An angry one, as already stated.
Running parallel to the themes of racism and hatred is the bond, love and grief of family. The scenes back in Kalgoorlie with the three siblings at home (on Simone Tesorieri and Simona Cosentini’s ochre-hued set) resonate well, with each giving voice to the way they are coping with their pain, guilt or regrets towards the father they have just lost and their strategies for living in a world which sees them as second-class citizens, not first people. Sebbens’ nuanced Carina and Cooper’s volatile Mateo are well drawn, empathetic characters, as is their cheery cousin Cliffhanger (Jeremy Ambrum), whose hearing disability will prove a tragic impairment.
Dad (Maitland Schnaars) puts in posthumous appearances to reinforce the life and cultural advice he gave to Breythe and to give us insight into traditional myths and beliefs. Christopher Stollery and Anthony Standish complete the ensemble in various roles, playing nasty white blokes, including the smug and stupid ad director, and a couple of hardnosed and bigoted cops.
As the tensions in Kalgoorlie ratchet up, and posters appear for “Cull a Coon Day”, inevitably there is going to be violence. It’s not pretty. The final scene is all the more terrible for being so horribly believable.
Nothing escapes Wyatt’s pen. A lifetime of pissed-offness is on show here, from the FIFO workers stuffing up Kalgoorlie and the police officers who pick on the black kids just because they can, to defending grants to Aboriginal students to showing up racism and prejudice for the crap that it is. And good on him for doing it. His monologues are harsh and uncomfortable to hear. They are lived experience, they are genuine and honest and shocking. His own performance is compelling. In the program notes, Wyatt says he wants us to love or hate the play, “just don’t feel anything in between”. Given that the majority of those who will go to see it will go with an open mind, or a mind that is at least disposed to feel the plight of Indigenous peoples, there will – I hope – be more love than hate, but I think there will be both.
Wyatt’s script references Adam Goodes, the subject of a recently released doco called The Final Quarter, which also shines a glaring light on racist attitudes in this country. Ian Darling’s documentary uses archival footage to show how Goodes, a great and respected sportsman whose skill on the field was always fabulous to watch – and who was, to boot, one of our Australians of the Year – was subjected to the most ignorant and racist vilification in the final months of a great AFL career. It is a wonderful and wonderfully sobering doco that everyone should see. The Final Quarter reveals its story with a subdued sorrow and dignity; City of Gold shouts it out at a 1000 decibels.
The play (Queensland Theatre presented by Griffin Theatre Co) runs for two hours and Wyatt has so much to say, so much to get off his chest. The first eight or so minutes of the second act is a diatribe, delivered with force and venom. I get why, I just don’t know if that is going to educate or alienate listeners. I hope we can listen, but there were some walkouts at the performance I attended.
After I’d seen City of Gold, I read this from its director Isaac Drandic: “[The play] asks you to be courageous and listen, especially when it gets difficult, to venture beyond the surface of its hardened exterior, peel back its layers, peek behind the curtain. To listen deep. It is a statement from the heart. I hope it is received in the spirit in which it is intended.”
Me too.
At SBW Stables, until 31 August
