Thriller with a message

The Exposurist

By P.P. Craney

Junction Theatre, cnr George St & South Rds, Thebarton

Until November 5

$15/$10, group bookings available. Phone (08) 43 6200.

Reviewed by Chris Spindler

Set in the Philippines, The Exposurist is an intriguing thriller with a forthright political message.

The play involves the search for a missing 14-year-old child. The person looking for the child is Jane Martin, a well-intentioned journalist, who was born in the Philippines but raised in Australia.

Jane meets her brother in Manila. The search for the missing child confronts Jane and the audience with many startling facts about life in the Philippines and the political issues which surround them. According to Craney, it is a particular aim of the play to raise the issues while not losing the entertaining twists and turns of the thriller.

Four weeks of research for the play in the Philippines took Craney to Manila, Olongapo, Negros, Cebu and Mindanao, interacting with representatives from urban poor communities and trade unions. He also met banana and sugar cane workers, fisherfolk and youth workers involved with street kids and children exploited in the child sex industry.

The play highlights problems with child labour, unsafe working conditions and the sex industry in Third World countries. It also points out the role of Australian investment in such industries.

Craney has had a long history writing for community theatre across the country, including Sidetrack Theatre and Death Defying Theatre in Sydney. He wrote The Yallourn Story, which was produced by the Gippsland Trades and Labour Council in Victoria, and Sticks and Stones, performed at Salamanca Theatre.

Craney's first play in relation to the Philippines was Offshore in 1991; it addressed the plight of women workers in the free trade zones of Asia.

From GLW issue 163