By Peter Boyle
MELBOURNE — Jose Pires left East Timor 17 years ago. He was eight years old. With his brothers and sisters he was bundled into a car and rushed to Dili wharf where the last ship was preparing to depart. The port was ablaze. They were thrown into a boat and older men of the family were able to join them only by pretending to carry on food. Jose now works at the Ford car factory in Broadmeadows.
Elizabeth Bothelheiro is now a child caseworker in Springvale, an outer suburb of Melbourne. Her family left East Timor on a business trip to Mozambique, never dreaming that they wouldn't return.
Margarida Pires, mother of seven children, has lived in Meadow Heights since 1975, when she fled East Timor after the Indonesian invasion. These are three of the cast of Matebian Nia Lian ("Voices of Souls"), a play composed, produced and performed by Melbourne's Timorese Cultural Group.
The group was formed in 1984 as an attempt to preserve traditional stories, song, dance, painting and poetry. It has been performing at festivals, schools and universities ever since. But this is the group's first play, put together with the assistance of a team of professional theatre workers.
The play, which incorporates traditional songs and dances as well as more contemporary forms, is about the lives of three heroic Timorese women. But the experiences in exile of the members of the Cultural Group are also woven into the text.
Madeleine Blackwell, who co-directs the play with James McCaughey, told Green Left Weekly: "Matebian is a mountain in Timor, where people believe souls go after death. In this play the actors invoke some of those souls to come to the theatre to tell of their sufferings but also to share their humour, music and dance.
"I hope the play doesn't only make audiences more aware of the tragedy and injustices of East Timor, but also provokes them to ask why this has happened.
"These stories of the experiences of the Timorese people since the brutal invasion in 1975 are somehow also my own story as an Australian, whose governments have known and kept silent, sacrificing the Timorese people and their culture for the sake of regional power relations, diplomacy and profits. It is my story too because Timor is a metaphor by which I see the shadowy nature of our Australian democracy."
Matebian Nia Lian will be performed at Theatreworks, 14 Acland St, St Kilda, Wednesdays to Saturdays, April 14 to May 2. Admission: $14/$8. Bookings: (03) 534 3388.