While often disturbing, these journeys into the past evoke lyricism, heart-warmth and rumbustious comedy. One child’s recollection (performed by Kathryn Schuback, written by Victoria Haralabidou) of the hot sand beneath bare toes and sense of pride in white foam floatees stirs nostalgia for long days at the beach, and another’s memory (Carla Nirella, Kimberley Lipschus) of visiting the “lemon and lime” farm of her Italian grandparents awakens longing for a past rural order and work-centred ethic.
However, both evocations have their downturn. The beach memory is to climax in an experience of extreme personal powerlessness and the failure of adults to offer protection. While the comforting farm and its patriarch, which offered the child refuge from her own dysfunctional family life, and has remained with her as an ideal, is erased by the power of developers.
While there are many amusing moments, the tale of the “Skink Master” (Stephen Wilkinson, Benito di Fonzo) is standout comedy. Engaged in a battle with ever-vigilant and nesting magpies over the hunting right to skinks, the young and frenzied hero is at once resolute in his determination but ever fearful of magpie power (well represented by the ferocious bird calls provided by the cast as is the hungry whine of their young).
It is difficult to resist connecting the surveillance of the magpies with the collective gaze of the peer group, ready to swoop upon any deviation from the norm and punish by isolation. The repercussions of this treatment upon the emerging individual who wishes only to belong can create future dislocation. One adolescent (Mark Dessaix, Katie Pollock) recollects that at the moment “I became me … there was nothing that didn’t burn”. In response, he became “hard and cold”, destroying the possibility of satisfactory relationships. Kelly’s story (Kelly Robinson, Didem Caia) suggests the possibility that there may not be a future.
An Iraqi recollection (James Baillan, performer and writer) of a childhood intersected by revolution is appropriately subdued in tone. A cataclysmic and immense event, but on the second day when “the hush of a funeral parlour” prevails, a 7 year-old child has toothache. When his mother insists, his reluctant father takes him to a socialist dentist. The tooth is drawn by an initially reluctant and hurried dentist and without anaesthetic. Why this extra pain? The probable answer carries a possible burden of guilt for the teller of the tale, but also gives grounds for hope.
There is hope too in the rich and strange recollection of the “hybrid orchid” (Rosanna Easton, Allison Rooke). Orchids can survive in the cold, in the dark, in most inhospitable habitat. But is survival enough, ought it be enough, for a child?
These seven skilled actors with only stools as props in a bare space with the spare and telling use of sound (Ashley Walker) to punctuate scenes brought the audience a vivid exploration of the micro-politics at the heart of a child’s world.
