Sorrow and triumph

Sadness
By William Yang
Belvoir Theatre, Sydney until October 18
Reviewed by Wayne Ruscoe

Sydney photographer William Yang has developed a unique drama form: the presentation of slides with an accompanying monologue from the artist. Yang's latest work is an exploration of race and custom, work and play, loss and memory.

As one of the country's leading photographers, and an insider in the Sydney art world, he enjoys unparalleled access to many of Australia's best and brightest. Patrick White, Brett Whiteley and Max Dupain all sat for Yang, and their portraits and many candid shots are a revelation.

The audience is guided through a photographic record of the past few years of the artist's life. We meet his friends and colleagues, and watch with growing dread as some of them are recorded dying of a variety of illnesses, mostly AIDS-related.

Yang records with tremendous dignity all the terrors of dying: the debilitation, the courage and will to live, and the stoicism of friends and lovers. Recorded too are the joy and triumph of lives well lived; never does the pathos of the situation overwhelm the positive feelings.

This is particularly so when Yang takes us on a journey of rediscovery that he made to his family roots in northern Queensland. Learning about the trials of his family, Chinese in a European world, Yang seems to have found another side to his own personality. The artist talks the audience through his discovery and invites us to learn something about ourselves as well.

Sadness is one of the finest, most personal works presented in Sydney for years.

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