DEAR SON
DEAR SON, Upstairs, Belvoir St Theatre; Queensland Theatre Company and State Theatre Company South Australia, at Sydney Festival to 25 January 2026. Photography by Stephen Wilson Barker
Inspired, if that’s the word, by the infamous Bill Leak cartoon of a drunken indigenous man unable to put a name to his small boy, Thomas Mayo asked a group of men to write a letter to their son, or father. The result was the 2021 book, Dear Son, now adapted for the stage by John Harvey and Isaac Dandric, who also directs.
Dear Son treats its audience to 75 minutes of illuminating storytelling through essays in a style reminiscent of Jack Davis, characterized by laid-back yet acute language and delivery. The company of five: Jimmy Bani, Kirk Page, Tibian Wyles, Waangena Blanco and Aaron Pedersen (he from the original Brisbane cast and in at a day’s notice for an ailing Luke Carroll) interact with the audience and each other in a compelling narrative.
The idyllic setting, by Kevin O’Brien, of a beautiful beach, backed by jungle, where a rudimentary fishing/escape shack stands, is lit by David Walters to signify both time of day and states of emotional being. It’s where the men gather for a yarn and a barbie (in a halved oil drum). And sardonic humour: you can’t eat your sacred animal? No worries, fellas, says Jimmy Bani, “I’ve got all your totem dietary requirements.”
The book’s contributors are Stan Grant, Troy Cassar-Daley, John Liddle, Charlie King, Jo Williams, Yessie Mosby, Joel Bayliss, Daniel James, Jack Latimore, Daniel Morrison, Tim Sculthorpe, and Blak Douglas. On stage, each actor takes on a handful of texts. These are edited and sometimes interwoven, and no character is named. Instead, the individuality of each actor gives the audience an anchor to hold on to.
Stan Grant wrote to his sons of his father’s struggle to hang on to (Wiradjuri) language and culture: “Pop is scarred from Australia”; while another father agonises over coming out to his son – “I’m gay. You know, gay. I’M GAY?” only to find he had nothing to fear from his compassionate offspring. In a broader social context, Kulkalgal man Yessie Mosby tells of the effects of global warming on his Torres Strait island home, where rising sea levels mean, “We are picking up our ancestors’ bones as if they were shells.”
In a change of pace and style, Tibian Wyles takes up a guitar to sing Troy Cassar-Daley’s “Windradyne” and “Some Days”. In its deceptively gentle country-ness, the song about the great warrior is especially powerful. (When can we expect a major show celebrating that extraordinary man?)
However, there is no shying away from the realities of life for so many indigenous Australians in 2026. Deaths in custody continue, poverty and rotten housing continue; Don Dale kids’ jail may have been closed, but the youngsters detained there have simply been moved to another, 1500 kms away. There’s surely another 4 Corners program to come, before long. And on it goes.
Like the best indigenous Australian storytelling, the pace and style are all its own; it follows no other, and non-indigenous audiences might at first get a bit fidgety. Nevertheless, the elliptical and unassuming approach is hypnotic and infectious. Drama and sorrow are glimpsed almost in passing, so the observer is always awash in multiple images and ideas.
It’s a rich and rewarding journey in the company of actors who’ve managed not only to overcome the mammoth hiccup of losing a cast member on opening night, and beyond, but also and crucially, to effortlessly bring the audience into the warmth and camaraderie of Dear Son and the lives and histories within it.
