We start back in time in both early 20th century Australia and Glasgow, Scotland, and move forward to the unlikely union and determination of Onus’s grandparent activists Bill Onus and his love, and partner in ‘rabble rousing’, Mary Kelly McClintoch. A man with many hats, Bill was an original member of the Victorian branch of the Aborigines Advancement League, opened Belgrave crafts factory, Aboriginal Enterprises, and toured as a boomerang thrower. Mary was equally pioneering, with a classical Glaswegian pedigree, she trained as a Physiotherapist who became a proud member of the Communist Party.
The story is a timeless expression of struggle against the odds of oppression, of a couple’s journey for the betterment of Aboriginal Australians, and one that holds a particular place in Australian history.
The intimate Malthouse Beckett Theatre stage is sparse except for three hanging cloth panels, on which Onus’s personal collection of historical images shines, giving face to the vivid characters and events in the story. Onus stands centre stage, strong and commanding, projecting his baritone voice with great measure in both song and spoken word. The perfect host, Onus endears with honesty and passion, while delivering personal accounts of Australia’s most uncomfortable truths.
The great calibre of Onus’s writing is evident, and the creative synergy between Cameron Menzies’s direction and Deborah Cheetham’s dramaturgy provides evenly spaced moments of humour where the audience can reflect, commiserate and be enlightened. These moments are made all the more possible through the selection of Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Songs of Travel and the poetical lyricism of Robert Louis Stevenson, which stirs the imagination and enables the audience to gently connect to the emotion of the moment. The nine songs, accompanied by Associate Artist Toni Laulich on piano, provide reflective interludes, and resting places throughout the journey of William and Mary, before moving onto their next chapter.
The crowd honours Onus’s performance with a standing ovation. Human stories, such as this, deserve to be told more often and more widely, as William & Mary is certainly deserving of international audiences.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
William and Mary
Written and performed by Tiriki Onus
Malthouse Theatre, Southbank
Melbourne Indigenous Arts Festival
www.thatsmelbourne.com.au
16 February
