Photo by Gary Marsh
The white-settler relationship with an untamed land and its Indigenous peoples is hardly a new theme in the Australian arts. To that extent emerging Western Australian playwright Chris Isaacs’ Flood joins and continues an established tradition in examining some of the essential disconnect between contemporary urban Australian youth and the nation’s physical, cultural and historical realities. Beyond Isaac’s lyricising of the land itself in several scripted vignettes, there are murky suggestions of a sacred site issue, perhaps some unwelcome, sacrilegious ‘white women’s business’ in the shape of a naked white girl’s frolicking at an outback waterhole.
On this count, following an already trodden path, Isaacs is self-aware, eyes wide open. He takes a clearly articulated position on the issues unburied in Flood, as seen in his contribution to the show programme: ‘…I am aware as a young, male, white playwright, the authenticity of certain voices are up for question. I accept that. So I approached the topic from a world I know…The truth is, these are everyone’s issues. We all share it. We all share its embarrassing shames…Race relations in Australia are not just indigenous issues. They belong to each of us. They impact on us all.’
The difference with Isaacs’s take in Flood may well be that here is the ‘post-sorry’ younger generation reconsidering such time-worn issues with fresh eyes, in its own style, from its own perspective—and that in itself lends a new validity to this time-worn theme. Isaacs has also brought to his subject a distinctively Western Australian perspective.
It couldn’t be simpler or more natural: one burning Western Australian summer, six typically carefree, boisterous and bantering 20-something youngsters catch up for the first time in a year and decide to go bush together, heading north, for a bit of a laugh.
The laughs are short-lived. Gradually, metaphorical clouds gather overhead. At the waterhole where they choose to camp, there is a pervasive sense of hidden menace. As tension within the group mounts, the threat finally manifests itself and is made flesh with the arrival of an unexpected, uninvited and unwanted visitor just as pretty Frankie is cavorting unclothed in the water. The ‘intruder’, as the kids see him, clearly wants them to leave the site forthwith. The campers’ reactions lead to a tragic crime that unravels the integrity of the group and ultimately leads to a second tragedy. This suddenly is serious business.
The offstage visitor is Indigenous (‘Indigenous? Aboriginal? What’s the okay word here,’ the campers wonder, in their embarrassed quest for correctness). This fact is central to the play’s ‘message’. And there is a message, a didactic underlay, which perhaps is one of Flood’s chief weaknesses.
Isaacs is himself young, of his characters’ generation, so he handles their lively social interaction with aplomb; the skill in the ‘choreography’ of their rapid-fire, overlaid dialogue in Flood is impressive, presumably attributable not only to Isaacs but also to Black Swan director Adam Mitchell and undeniably to an evenly accomplished cast, every one a star. Flood mostly works, in large part because of the actors, the direction, and the set.
Structurally though, there are occasional instances of the play coming unstuck, with the audience not always entirely clear about what has just happened. On the other hand, it has to be said that it is also structurally quite pleasurable to experience a neat 70-minute play running from start to finish in one go, with no interval.
The combination of set designer, India Mehta, and lighting designer, Chris Donnelly, works small miracles with what initially seems an unimposing set, apparently a slab of undulating terraced levels, akin to curved flights of stairs, or a Balinese rice paddy. But the lighting turns these into an evocative topography of rust-red rocks, complete with a running creek in the centre. They serve the purposes of the play perfectly.
Flood, the play itself, is not without flaws, but as a whole this is a polished production. For this reviewer, the final few minutes and lines resonate with particular power. It is as though Isaacs has managed to sum up the impotence of an entire nation when the cast stands there mouthing, ‘We’re sorry, so very sorry…We just don’t know what to do, you see…’
Rating: 3 ½ stars out of 5
Flood
By Chris Isaacs
Director: Adam Mitchell
Set & Costume Designer: India Mehta
Lighting Designer: Chris Donnelly
Sound Designer Composer: Ben Collins
Movement Director: Danielle Micich
Resident Fight Director: Andy Fraser
Stage Manager: Liam Murray
Assistant Stage Manager: Georgia Landre-Ord
Set Construction: Artsworkshop
Cast: Joshua Brennan, Adriane Daff, Samuel Delich, Will O’Mahony, Whitney Richards, Rose Riley.
Black Swan State Theatre Company
Studio Underground STCWA, Perth
www.bsstc.com.au
17 January–2 February
