Belinda Giblin and Jamie Oxenbould. Photo: Brett Boardman
This is a great play, absolutely relevant for our times, enacted by a fabulous cast under Lee Lewis’s sure direction for Griffin. Playwright David Williamson – in what he has said will be his final play (but we’ve heard that before) – knows family occasions bring together people with widely differing views who are only present because duty demands it.
His impetus to write Family Values was the government’s decision to deport a Sri Lankan family with two small children, who had lived happily in Queensland for years and were liked and respected by their community. Raided by Border Force at 5am, without warning, they were bundled off to detention. That was in March 2018. Family Values is not about the Biloela family, but it is about our country’s inept response to the refugee crisis. Williamson expresses his outrage via a story of a psychologically damaged Iranian detainee who finds herself at the mercy of Home Affairs’ Border Force, and also of a decidedly dysfunctional family.
Lewis describes the play as difficult to rehearse but also blackly comic. The finished result is certainly that.
Roger (Andrew McFarlane) is a retired judge about to celebrate his 70th birthday. Some concisely written, verbal sparring between Roger and his wife Sue (Belinda Giblin) establishes Roger’s attitude to gay marriage, the paternal role in child-rearing, divorce and minorities, and Sue’s more lenient views. Proud to be a ‘social conservative’ and steeling himself for the imminent arrival of his daughter Emily (Ella Prince) and her partner Noeline (Bashanyia Vincent), Roger is completely appalled when his other daughter Lisa (Danielle King) turns up with Saba (Sabryna Walters), an Iranian refugee on the run from Nauru. Naturally – and despite Sue and Lisa’s pleas to the contrary – he refuses to supply the keys to the family’s holiday home. Into this stand-off come son Michael (Jamie Oxenbould), who’s recently found God and whose Hillsong church is horrified by gay marriage, then Emily and the domineering Noeline, both of whom work for Border Security.
Next up: Islamaphobia. As Noeline spouts the government line, ‘We’re stopping refugee drownings at sea’, Lisa responds with ‘Everyone with half a brain knows this policy… is to reassure the Western suburbs of Sydney that as many Muslims as possible are stopped from reaching Sydney.’ Which of course leads to fear of terrorism, and Christian values and brutal detention policies, and then deterioriates into old family grievances and resentments and – yes – among the bleak realities expressed there are some very funny moments to do with LEGO and Galaxy Commanders and Roger comparing his birthday party to an episode of Game of Thrones.
We don’t meet Gary Duckett, the Immigration Minister – but we know who he is. When eventually, we hear Saba’s story, why she fled Iran and what she has endured on Nauru, Walters delivers her truths with a quiet sincerity that is impossible to dispute or fail to understand. Lost LEGO never sounded more trivial. Living a life of privilege in a posh part of Sydney and hiding behind the letter of the law never sounded more inhumane.
All this is played out on a set (designed by Sophie Fletcher) that speaks of upper-class affluence and is decorated with coloured party balloons.
Family Values is pure Williamson, but angrier than many of his more recent plays. He doesn’t pull any punches, and there is no doubt as to his personal views. Neither does the play tell informed Australians anything they didn’t already know. However, the ending offers a glimmer of hope.
In only 90 minutes, it holds up a mirror to the society we have become. It will surely not go down as a golden age. Family Values, however, is golden in its dark exposés and its use of humour to show us, once again, ‘policies that are so immoral they can no longer be ignored’. Or can they? Let’s see what happens to the Biloela family who (nearly two years later) are still here, still in detention on Christmas Island, still awaiting the courts’ decisions. Let’s hope they are allowed to stay.
Until 7 March. Tickets: $20 (Monday Rush) to $62. See griffin.com.au
