Black Chicks Talking by Leah Purcell and Sean Mee. La Boite Theatre and Queensland Performing Arts Centre in association with Bungabura Productions. Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House: Sydney Festival January 17-18, 20-25.
Leah Purcell has now turned Aboriginal women's true stories from her book and television documentary into a dramatic fiction. Four women representing different Aboriginal backgrounds - Elizabeth (Leah Purcell) who has been brought up white, Patricia (Kyas Sherriff) who knows she's black and learns Aboriginal Studies at Uni, Michelle (Sher Williams-Hood) who's proud to be black, despite a life of poverty, drink and drugs, and Sophie (Tessa Rose) who is closest to traditional knowledge while also educated in European ways - are brought together mysteriously to a mythic bush setting by the spirit of Jeanine, the younger sister of Patricia.
When their Aboriginal mother left, their white father kept Patricia but fostered out Jeanine in the hope that she would not remember, being only 5 at the time of her removal. But, of course, her father is the one person she cannot forget, and she now searches for the knowledge of her real family.
For this play non-Indigenous people must suspend disbelief. The Aboriginal spirit world is absolutely frightening and hard to interpret, even for Sophie, when in someone else's country. We never get to understand how these diverse women come to be in Jeanine's country, but this is not the issue. This is spirit business.
In the end, each character - and that means each of us - must face the realities of their own past, seeing how their present behaviour is not based on truth: only then can they grow into real knowledge, understanding and compassion.
The theme is unexceptional and universal, but in my opinion the play is not as powerful as the SBS documentary where we saw the real women speak. This is because the script needs tightening. For example the message that Elizabeth, who could only see herself as part-Aboriginal (which part? says Michelle), finally found her way in a dance experience, was immediately clear, but the dance sequence then went on far too long, as if repeating the message unnecessarily.
Much more heightened poetic language would also lift sequences above and beyond the ordinary and deepen the emotional effect. So Black Chicks Talking is a good play, but not yet a great play.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
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