Directed by Bobbi Henry, Yirra Yaakin Theatre Company’s staging of Wesley Enoch and Deborah Mailman’s one-woman play The 7 Stages of Grieving begins with soft murmurings of grief, which build into tides of emotion.
At first, we see a lone young woman – played on Saturday 5 July by Shontane Farmer and performed on alternate nights by Shahnee Hunter. She sits onstage alone in the darkness. Her legs are crossed and her hands rest on her knees. She is crying quietly to herself.
To her right is a small mound of sandy earth. Behind her are three clean-edged Perspex boxes that look remarkably like museum displays.
What’s striking about this subtle stage set – conceived by set and costume designer Charlotte Meagher – is how it hints at the complex terrains many Aboriginal people traverse in society today, in seeing parts of their culture institutionalised behind glass, while their hearts ache for their ancestral Country.
These poignant themes – of loss, surveillance and control, juxtaposed with love, survival and strength –reoccur throughout this play. And, 30 years on from its premiere, they prove how a mere hour in the theatre with just one person sharing their stories is sometimes all you need to be irrevocably moved.
But this is storytelling that demands a huge amount from its one lone performer. In this case, it’s the play’s ‘Everywoman’ character who must deliver every line of its many, varied stories – channelling its multitudes while keeping the audience on the hook at every step.
Farmer’s commanding stage presence delivers just that. With movement direction by choreographer Janine Oxenham, Farmer’s body language and silent gestures stand out as the strength of her assured performance, and allow some of the work’s most important thematic currents to reach their emotional peaks.
Also, while screen-based visuals (by Emma Fishwick), sound design (by Rebecca Riggs-Bennett) and lighting states (by Kristie Smith) add layers or resonance to certain scenes, it’s the production’s set design (by Meagher) that imbues it with its deepest poetic meaning.
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In one especially tragic scene, our narrator recounts the true story of the death in custody of a young Murri man named Daniel Yock; 75 minutes after his arrest, this young Aboriginal man took his last breath in what are still contested circumstances around his treatment in custody.
Importantly, Meagher’s set, with its scattered earth lying in front of the three ominously-lit Perspex display cases, allows these scenes to speak of the cascade of emotions we feel around death, in contrast to the hard-edged rules of government systems (like law enforcement).
On that note, it’s interesting to consider how the work’s first audiences would have felt watching that particular scene – in 1995, just two years after the real-life events took place.
Most likely it would have felt like a sharp kick in the guts. Yet 30 years later, that pain feels more like a dull ache to which we have become accustomed – like a terrible chronic pain we are yet to overcome.
Enoch and Mailman have always contended that this play is not a fixed entity. Rather, its open-ended structure as a string of non-linear short stories make it ripe for recrafting over time.
So, one wonders – after the recent Voice to Parliament Referendum (and so much else!) and to a play that was last reworked in 2008 when a scene about the Sydney Harbour Bridge Reconciliation March was added – could now be a good time for the playwrights to add at least one more short instalment to the script?
Either way, what Yirra Yaakin’s 30th anniversary remount of the work makes clear is that its original script – fuelled by stories of grief, broken ties and hypervigilant control of Aboriginal people, but also of their intrinsic strength and pride in culture and Country – still strikes a chord.
Even when its stories are tucked away and stored safely inside a suitcase under the walnut cabinet, they reveal the many complex layers of grieving – both personal and collective – while also showing the love of kin as a precious wellspring of hope.
The 7 Stages of Grieving
30th anniversary season presented by Yirra Yaakin Theatre Company
Subiaco Arts Centre, WA
Writers: Wesley Enoch and Deborah Mailman
Director: Bobbi Henry
Director Mentor: Jo Pollitt
Movement Director: Janine Oxenham
Set and Costume Designer: Charlotte Meagher
Composer and Sound Designer: Rebecca Riggs-Bennett
Lighting Designer: Kristie Smith
Audiovisual Designer: Emma Fishwick
Audiovisual Consultant: Steve Berrick
Producer: Jess Gatt
Production Manager: Troy Williams
Stage Manager: Shannen Moulton
Assistant Stage Manager: Reese Horne
Production Manager: Troy Williams
Performers: Shahnee Hunter and Shontane Farmer (appearing on alternating nights)
The 7 Stages of Grieving will be performed until 12 July 2025.
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