SYDNEY FESTIVAL/THE NARGUN AND THE STARS
Scott Wright is artistic director of erth (aka erth visual & physical inc, whose studio workshop at Carriageworks is a hotbed of puppetic and visual technological creativity). He figured out that most Australians – kids or otherwise – have a clearer idea of what a troll, goblin, fairy or boy wizard looks like than any Australian mythic creature. At the “meet the puppets” session after the show at Riverside last Sunday he asked the audience if they knew what the foreign critters looked like and a forest of hands shot up; asked what a bunyip looked like and nobody knew.
Plus ca change. Twenty-plus years ago Ernie Dingo tried much the same experiment with an audience at Belvoir St: who could say yes in Italian, French, German, Spanish? All could. Who could say yes in any Australian indigenous language? Not one hand went up.
Anyway, that’s the background to the erth-Performing Lines stage adaptation of Patricia Wrightson’s novel for youngsters, The Nargun and the Stars, which won the 1974 Australian Children’s Book Council Book of the Year Award and was illustrated by fabled children’s book illustrator, Robert Ingpen.
After two years work Scott Wright and his team, plus playwright Verity Laughton, have brought to life the story of Simon (Tom Green), a boy whose parents have been killed in an accident and whose much older distant cousins offer him a place to live. The city boy finds himself on an isolated farm in country Victoria and he’s not impressed.
Edie (Annie Byron) and Charlie (Bill Young) are salt of the earth types, always ready with a cuppa and homespun advice, but not much company for a boy. He is lonely and lost, until visited one night by creatures the like of which he’s never seen before: the tiny, mischievous Nyols, whose ears are as big as their eyes are bright and tiny. Next day, wandering disconsolately in the bush, he chances upon a rock pool and another strange creature – the Potkoorok ¬ slithers out of the water to meet him. This trickster is a remarkable large lizard thingy and it would be very nice to have one at the bottom of your garden.
By the time Simon makes the acquaintance of the Turrongs (pictured here) life is looking up for Simon, although he is a bit bewildered when a huge rock he finds further up the mountain suddenly seems to disappear.
Back at the farmhouse, Edie and Charlies don’t seem a bit surprised to learn of his new pals, rather, they’re relieved that he’s seen them (some humans can’t). But life isn’t destined to be easy: terrible noises drift and echo down from the mountains – bulldozers and graders are tearing up trees and doing other environmental horrors in the cause of “progress”.
The racket caused by the machinery disturbs everyone – human and Dreaming creatures – and most particularly, The Nargun, a ferociously grumpy monster girl who just happens to be made of rock. What happens next will keep 5-8-year-olds glued to their seats, while adults will marvel at the skill and spectacle of the mix of puppetry, inflatables and visual imagery.
Erth took care to consult with the traditional owners of the Dreaming stories from which the creatures come and the mix of ancient and modern, human drama and environmental message, is part of what ought to be an enduring interest in this version of The Nargun and the Stars.
The show is beautiful to look at, the puppets and their puppeteers are magical; the staging is imaginative and the three human actors hold their own because they’re very good at what they do. It’s completed its Sydney Festival run and goes next to the Perth Festival, after that – who knows, but with Performing Lines behind it as producer it should have a long touring shelf life and delight as many kids of all ages as possible.
