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JACK CHARLES V THE CROWN
Review

JACK CHARLES V THE CROWN

April 3 2011

JACK CHARLES V THE CROWN, an Ilbijerri Theatre Company Production Indigenous Theatre at Belvoir, supported by The Balnaves Foundation, Upstairs Theatre, Belvoir St; 30 March-17 April, 2011. Photos by Heidrun Lohr

THIS IS A show of startling contrasts. It begins with the charmingly pixie-ish Jack Charles, on-stage, watching himself casually shoot up in flickering back-screened scenes from 2008’s award-winning documentary Bastardy. Some while later the screen lights up with the gleaming, toothy grin and scrubbed-clean black face of the child Jackie in his crisp white Salvation Army orphan home shirt and baggy shorts.

Jackie, of course, was not an orphan; his mother was alive and living in Swan Hill and he had many siblings. But he didn’t discover that for years, by which time he had already begun the steady descent into some forty years of crime, prison and, inevitably, drug addiction. Via the doco Charles peddles the line that heroin is sort of okay – that we, the audience, can’t tell that he’s just had a hit – that it’s therefore neither a bad thing nor a crime. Which conveniently leaves out the views of the burgled and the robbed, as well as the endless cycle of prison sentences, homelessness and sheer awfulness of much of his life.

Incredibly, despite all, this tiny, frail-looking elder has retained a joie de vivre and sweetness while acquiring a level of wisdom and compassion that combine to make him inspiring and entertaining company. And he’s been clean for six years and looks wonderful: shaggy mane of silver-white hair, sparkling eyes, wiry body and beautiful hands. These are much in evidence as he operates a potter’s wheel, throwing an elegant piece as he relates his story. It’s hard to separate the two mesmerizing elements: the voice and the clay. The soft, white clay is an obvious metaphor for human life from start to finish – and his skill, learned in prison and now being passed on by him in lessons, is hypnotic to watch.

Also hypnotic, and electrifying, are his richly resonant voice and perfect diction, wrought by long ago elocution lessons and a previous life as a successful actor and lounge singer. And again, the contrasts are extreme: the stories of the small boy, abused and confused who was compelled to leave the “home”, age 14, to take on adult life and the big city are told in the sonorous tones that belong to the era of Olivier and Gielgud.

JACK CHARLES V THE CROWN

With Bob Maza Charles was among the founders of Melbourne’s (and Australia’s) first indigenous theatre company, in 1972, and he also featured inThe Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith and Blackfellas. Now, his old friend’s daughter, Rachel Maza Long is his director and she has coaxed and fashioned a delicately lovely and poignant show around Charles, much as he does with the soft clay on his whirling wheel. More theatre history and legend is present in the form of John Romeril
whose script is both straightforward and poetic in its story telling: lovely language and imagery are there to be savoured.

The essentially solo show is augmented, from the side of the stage by three terrific musicians: musical director, guitarist and violinist Nigel Maclean, bass player Mal Beveridge and percussionist Phil Collings. The trio accompany Charles on a trip down memory lane of 40s ballads, as well as a beautiful bluesy rendering of Oodgeroo's poem Son of Mine. Emily Barrie’s setting – a studio/shed on whose unadorned walls the images are projected and where shelves hold plain white pots awaiting glazes and firing – is interesting and effective without distracting from the main event.

And Jack Charles is the main event: a charming, playful veteran of Australia’s continuing wars with itself. A man whose dignity, humour and courage are potent weapons and which, like love itself, come from an inexhaustible supply that is available to all in the struggle against bigotry and ignorance.

 

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