KILL THE MESSENGER
KILL THE MESSENGER, Belvoir and the Balnaves Foundation at Belvoir St Theatre, 18 February-8 March 2015. Photography by Brett Boardman: above - Lasurus Ratuere; right: Nakkiah Lui and Sam O’Sullivan.
The power of Nakkiah Lui’s semi-autobiographical work is that as well as her own contention that its central theme is institutionalised racism, with all that implies in the Australian context, it is universal and can also be seen as an indictment of institutionalised class conflict.
Liu is a bold and apparently fearless adventurer when it comes to playwriting and performing, although as she says at one point when the character Nakkiah is astride her lover Pete (Sam O’Sullivan), it’s all very well to write a sex scene when you think Miranda Tapsell is going to be playing you...
The most effective element of Lui’s short play (70-80 minutes depending on laughter) is that it’s leavened with lots of laughs. That makes the underlying anger and bewilderment easier to take and therefore easier to digest and follow. There is nothing like unrelenting rage to make it impossible to connect with an audience and to turn off even the most well-intentioned, and Lui adroitly avoids that.
Lui tells a story of everyday life and death in Western Sydney – five stories really – as Paul (Lasurus Ratuere) takes his pain and addiction to a park and hangs himself after being refused pain meds at the local hospital – no spoiler, that’s the opening scene. At that hospital a long-suffering nurse Alex (Matthew Backer) has had to deal with one angrily violent addict too many on his long thankless shift and sent away the young man, convinced that his “pain” was the usual ploy to get a dose of pethidine or morphine for free.
Paul’s sister Harley (Katie Beckett) visits the hospital, angry and on the hunt for what she believes is the “institutionalised racism” behind the negative response to her brother’s pleas for help. And here’s where it becomes interesting from the audience’s point of view – because we are already privy to Alex’s weariness at having to cope with yet another punchy addict who thinks he can con a dose of happy juice out of the pubic health system. Racist? Possibly, but in this instance probably not and therefore the strands of the story separate and challenge us to follow.
Meanwhile, Nakkiah met and flirted with Paul at a bus stop on the way to the hospital. Or did she? As she remarks to Pete, telling a story – lies – to someone can make it real. That’s the mark of the real storyteller! But it gives her the wherewithal to hang a narrative off the delicate strand of imagination. And anyway, there is a truth on which to hang it: her beloved grandmother was in the same hospital slowly and painfully dying after an accident The accident happened because she fell through of a hole in the floor of her public housing that was caused by the holes in the bureaucracy through which she also fell – because she was Aboriginal.
The various strands of truth and fiction weave, interweave, separate and extrapolate as Lui embroiders at will and with élan. There is tragedy, humour, love and hate knitted into the narratives and director Anthea Williams brings clarity to the action, helped by lighting designer Katie Sfetkidis’s and Ralph Myers’ stark set design of a square of white light beamed down upon the black bare stage in which the action mainly takes place. A bed is trundled off and on, but that’s it for props or furnishings, while family and other photographs are projected on the back walls of the theatre (Amanda James). Williams also draws fine performances from the actors – particularly newcomer Lasurus Ratuere, who is definitely on the “one to watch” list and a powerful newcomer to the Sydney stage.
Lui herself is already a rising star of the new generation and this ratty, bumpy yet engaging and entertaining work is another step along the way for her in a career that will be fascinating to watch.
