Sometimes you see a play where the facts of its narrative
defy belief. ‘Kill the Messenger’ is one of those plays, except the facts are indisputably
true. Written and told by Nukkiah Lui, ‘Kill the Messenger’ explores
institutionalised racism and the deaths of two people ignored by the system.
This is powerfully driven home in the story of Paul, who died riddled with
terminal cancer but untreated in hospital and Lui’s grandmother, victim of a
termite infested commission house and eventually injured through its neglect
and deterioration.
Lui was convinced by director, Anthea Williams, to play
herself in the production. That’s not an easy task and made all the harder for
the writer to live through the experience of your world in the makeshift
reality of the stage. But Lui does it very well and her humour keeps the
mood light so she can punch the message out when needed.
Some of those moments are in the scenes with Paul (Lasarus
Ratuere) and his sister Harley (Katie Beckett) as he strips her home of goods
to feed his drug addiction. But it is in the interactions between Lui and Peter (Sam O'Sullivan) where her anger of the dichotomy of their experiences is given focus and those between Paul and Lui unfold like
ghost scenes and are beautifully crafted and reminiscent of ‘Conversations with
the Dead’.
Ralph Myers design allows for a square of light and two
large projection screens to endow the narrative with an authenticity and
simplicity so as not to overpower the storytelling but make the images we
witness bold and direct. Katie Sfetkidis’ lighting is integral to that,
creating a box that allows us to compartmentalise the interactions and issues
that arise.
It is a reminder how much we, as a primarily middle-class
white audience, take basic services and care for granted. Complaints are often
not treated as suspicious nor as irrelevant and so it is a wake-up call to us,
in the comfort of a society geared towards telling our stories and catering for
our needs, that this is not the truth for all.
Lui tells us this play has no ending because the issues stay
unresolved. This is a well-crafted play to recognise that the structure should
mirror the content. It’s an example of contemporary black theatre and stories
that need to be told and need to be seen. Whilst it’s easy to dismiss older
Indigenous plays as historical, there is no escaping the immediate relevance of
‘Kill the Messenger’.
As Lui says at the end of the play, ‘I wrote this for you.
Especially for you. Just for you. I’m standing here, in front of you, and I say
please, listen.’ It doesn’t get much clearer than that.
The conclusion for our performance, last week was
ReplyDelete"‘I wrote this. You paid for this. You wanted it. So take it"