The Long Forgotten Dream

by H Lawrence Sumner

seen at the Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House on 15 August 2018

Neil Armfield of the Sydney Theatre Company directs Wayne Blair as Jeremiah Tucker, Shakira Clanton as his daughter Simone, Ningali Lawford-Wolf as his sister Lizzie, Melissa Jaffer as Gladys Dawson and Justin Smith as Pastor Henry Gilles in a story embracing both the personal pain of family loss and the charged political and social questions arising out of the clash of indigenous and European values and practices in a small community.

The play opens with Simone's return to her cantankerous father's house after an absence of which he apparently does not approve. The tension is obvious; the details of her journey and his reservations about it slowly emerge; she has discovered the remains of her great-grandfather, who should have been a tribal leader, in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and has arranged for their repatriation. She wants her father, as the closest surviving male relative, to welcome King Tulla home, but Jeremiah, steeped in misery over more recent traumas and scornful of the likely media circus surrounding such events, is unwilling to cooperate.

In another strand of the play, Gladys Dawson, dead at 102, expects her remains to be returned to England but discovers that she has 'baggage' which must be resolved before her spirit can be quiet. It transpires that her youthful liaison with King Tulla was the cause of his eventual murder; and their daughter whom she gave up for adoption eventually became Jeremiah's mother. It's a bold move to place a spirit story on stage with shadowy figures speaking to Gladys behind a billowing eerily lit cloth vast as the sky, but it serves wonderfully to expand the scope of the play's contemporary drama to embrace the great questions of life, death, responsibility, compassion and healing. the juxtapositions are at their most poignant and acute when Jeremiah almost seems to see the spectral Gladys, as she in turn tries desperately to discover the connection between her own life and the painful confrontations she is witnessing between Jeremiah and the two strong women in his life, Simone and Lizzie.

In the awkward wide space of the Drama Theatre stage the action nonetheless seems intimate and close. Furniture is moved by the cast to create Jeremiah's living space and to indicate other settings, but the vastness of the land is always behind and above, marked by the bare blackness behind, the exposed wings at the side, the sand on the floor and the enigmatic canopy above (set designs by Jacob Nash). It all creates a fascinating mood of stillness into which the raw emotions of the characters can spill without seeming either trite or overblown, and the live musical accompaniment by William Barton further enhances the atmosphere.

The themes are perhaps familiar, but the dangers of stereotyping are avoided with some surprisingly sharp and funny dialogue and some neat swipes at the pomposity and complacency of some European attitudes to indigenous culture - there's a wonderful little scene about dot paintings which counterpoints the more serious issues at stake. It seems to me very interesting that if this play had been written by a person of European descent there would have been an outcry about the depiction of the main characters, but self-mockery is entirely acceptable.

The performances are strong, Wayne Blair in particular carrying the difficult task of portraying an irritable and taciturn man unwilling to express his feelings verbally with great skill, so that his final unbending is seen clearly as a significant step while still showing a dignified reserve. The fact that some parts of the family story remain unresolved makes the final gestures of welcome for the remains and spirit of the lost king more poignant, the conclusion of a memorable production.