Sydney Reviews

Finding a voice and having someone to listen: storytelling has never been so compelling. This is history, but also the future – plumbing your past to irrigate your future. When is story telling history? When is basketweaving with your grandmother a lesson in life, a lesson in environment and seasonal change? Hearing the birds and insects a part of everyday life? Treating your family, the trees, as if they were your brother or sister?

Saturday afternoon at the Brunswick Picture House, mid Byron Writers Festival, and the crowds are gathering outside, waiting to take their seats inside. Once inside, MC Billy McPherson performed an Acknowledgement of Country (this, in itself, is spiritually uplifting) and let the storytelling commence.

Through passionate poetry, storytelling, book-reading and stream-of-consciousness, we are transported back to a time when it all began (and ended) for our First Nations people. A glimpse of the past, the present and hopefully a better future: A better future embracing 'truth telling' and bearing witness, through NORPA's production of Bundjalung Nghari – Indigenise, in association with Byron Writers Festival.

'History is written by the winners', I was once told, way back when I was a mere embryo, and it rankled me then, as it does now. Time to rewrite history, then, don't you think, as the planet slides past in another newsbite of doom-and-gloom. Listening to the five stories presented to us on Saturday evening, I'm sure most of the audience came away with more hope, more 'truth' and more inspiration than we might have felt in a very long time. I know I did.

Kylie Caldwell, Bundjalung artist, writer, weaver and fibre artist, wrote 'Nanna, you remember', acted out by Rhoda Roberts and Sarah Roberts-Field, enthralling the audience, "we share this swampy rush, take only what you need." To see these actors on the stage, weaving their story and their baskets, grandmother and granddaughter together – well, who would not have moist-eye? 

"'Nanna, you remember!' is a contemporary poetic performance, weaving together the connections between plants, animals and human relationships. Nanna gives a local wetland rush a voice as she speaks a deeper layer of understanding of the critical cultural values of symbiotic interdependence."

Kylie is "interested in reviving and pursuing traditional cultural practices that her ancestors have, over thousands of years."

Daniel Browning's story, 'Gamay-gundul juri-buyuhl (Big Canoe/Floating Mountain) acted out by Browning and Tom Davies: "You hear a monologue, I hear a symphony". A conversation is had with Joseph Banks, when the Endeavour rounded the cape in 1770, and Banks being deflated by the "passionate disinterest" the Ancestors showed – "alternate history meets speculative fiction as a superhuman Ancestor with acute hearing and long range vision as well as the gift of premonition telepaths with the botanist Banks – a human decoy for the Endeavour's true mission." Now that's a history lesson I would have enjoyed at school! "Seen but unseeing" or were they? "What are the implications of this historical moment and how does this miscommunication echo in the present?" Perhaps now there will be more enlightenment, now that the voices are taking up momentum? Daniel's short play admits there is "poetry in metaphor" and "... the story you will write will obliterate us ... your stories will overwhelm us, but not forever."

Passionate and poetic Ella Noah Bancroft presents her storytelling (author of 'Sun and Moon') 'We are the only species that can make fire' and through this fiery monologue, Ella is fervent, it's "Time to speak the truth ... pale, stale males looking for world domination." Ella is captivating, "ten year olds in jail" juxtaposed "for we are young and free." Ella raves on the "Toddlers in Parliament" (my favourite line so far). The lament of 250 years of agriculture and the loss of stolen land, stolen medicine, asking us, "Who are the true criminals?" Outlining her ancient obligations ("just ask the communities who have suffered through floods and fires") her "devotion to planet and people" and asking us, "have you ever ..." with tear-jerking truth. And remember "we are the only species that can make fire." Wow!

Steven Oliver's story 'Wild Life' portrays his "problem with anger". The audience laughed. Steven moves to the centre of the stage "I'm special, come to the centre of the stage." Racist remarks, bullying and then, "you're not like the rest of them" as most of the racists then want to tell him how the 'others' are. Dispelling myths of "you get everything for free", Steven says, "at what point does a person say, NO MORE?" The horrible weight of racism, "twisting the truth, but with one person defending you, makes you not feel so alone." Even through this immersive work, Steven can crack us up big time. When he verbalises his "How you like that, angry black" it is poetic magic. "Separate, but one are we." Hopefully. 

"He knows he doesn't want to show physical displays of being angry because once he brings it out into the world it can make him quite cruel or even worse, not sexy. Yucky! He's seen what being angry has done to Alan Jones and that's not a price his sexy face is willing to pay." Mercifully!

Rhoda Roberts and Sarah Roberts-Field perform Melissa Lucashenko's 'Dreamers' story, and when Sarah says, "Gimme an axe" we are all upright and focused. Crabbes Creek, one hundred year old ghost gums (every tree a person) and the story of Ted, May, Jean and baby Eric. A story enfolding loss of children, bonding through grief and the return of the child "in a way they could never have anticipated." Once again, the mood in the audience is palpable and many a tear drop trailing down many a face. "Melissa Lucashenko is an acclaimed Aboriginal writer of Goorie and European heritage. Since 1997 Melissa has been widely published as an award-winning novelist, essayist and short story writer. Her novel "Too Much Lip' won the 2019 Miles Franklin prize." After Rhoda's lyrical reading of 'Dreamers', I can fully understand why.

Stories are what bind us together – be it writer or reader, viewer or actor, child growing, adult knowing. Hope for the future is certainly something to write about.