A bare stage with a covered table and a chair, sheets of paper scrunched up in angry origami littering the floor. It’s a simple image that softly, surely becomes part of the narrative .
Taking its starting point from a theatre production staged just after the second world war by Chinese workers at Bulimba dockyards, this play traces the story of a group of six men who had to flee China after the Japanese invasion in the 1930s.
A collaboration of epic proportions. So the program describes the process of creating this beautiful, powerful recreation of the central love story of Homer’s Iliad; a process of blending and interweaving the innovative creative powers of two amazing theatre companies. It is not an exaggeration.
Time might have forgotten them but this stage performance reminds us the wives were all once very much alive. They had stories to tell, secrets to whisper. Before they were royalty they dreamt of how it would be, just as you and I would have done.
It’s been 3 years since Come From Away first came to Melbourne with its incredible true story of the small Canadian town of Gander that took on over 7000 stranded passengers after the September 11 attacks.
Bangarra’s works are rooted in tradition and inspirations from country and it’s not unusual for the men and women to have different roles, as culture dictates.
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.