Hipbone Sticking Out
Written with and for the Roebourne community & directed by Scott Rankin. Big hART production at Melbourne Festival. Arts Centre Melbourne,
Playhouse. 17 – 21 October 2014
Hipbone Sticking Out s a beautifully
polished will funded/supported/backed work a stunning opportunity to see what
Community Theatre can be – at its best.
Having taken three
years to develop by Big hArt with the community of Roebourne in the Pilbara Hipbone Sticking Out takes it
inspiration from the death in custody of a 16 year old boy John Pat. It is a sort of retrospective look at the
damage done to Australia’s beautiful sensitive indigenous communities from the
beginning of brutal imperialistic colonization.
 |
| Trevor Jamison and Nelson Coppin |
Very movingly it
focuses on the boy John Pat as an adult through the strong and thoroughly
engaging stage presence of Trevor Jamison who is a continual presence with his
sixteen year old younger self played by Nelson Coppin.
 |
| Trevor Jamison |
Boasting some
wonderfully strong performers and a whole troupe of glorious singers the work
just bursts to life with a splendid audio of exquisite voices.
Lex Marinos is a
beautiful strong presence and his voice is rich and mellifluous. He plays a wonderful Pluto as things get
rolling and narrates throughout.
Although it does
have a very persuasive didactic core there is much humour throughout and a
sense of irony often comes to the fore.
How Australia’s
Indigenous Mobs were forced into the untenable position that was and is now
unrelentingly debilitating is clearly described. It is a timely work a clear and through
overview, a background that we can move forward from.
Having recently
read Kate Grenville’s moving Novel The
Secret River noted some similarities and that text is fairly soon to hit
our small screens.
The concluding
positive and proactive emphasis is on the young people and how to support them
and help facilitate burgeoning futures.
The set designed
by Genevieve Dugard is versatile and interesting. The stage that is raked to one side and
offers considerable flexibility. The use
of projections is simply stunning.
In interval I
found myself thinking of all the people I would love to be able to take to this
show – hopefully there will be other chances.
Really tremendous
Theatre - so worth catching.
Suzanne Sandow
(For Stage Whispers)
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