BY DENIS OLSEN
BRISBANE — Campaigners for freedom for refugees will soon have a new tool. The Carnival of the Oppressed, a street theatre collective, is working on a new play which will be touring the footpaths shortly. Utilising masks and puppets, Girt by Sea will use satire and burlesque to argue in favour of refugees' rights.
Girt by Sea has already had a mixed history, its writer Dave Riley told Green Left Weekly. "It began as workshops for the Refugee Claimants' Support Centre but when the 'children overboard' issue hit, no-one wanted to know us. I took some of the ideas in that aborted production and fused it with puppets. Now the script is nearing completion and we're looking for people to perform it."
Girt By Sea is a synthesis of Riley's long experience as a political activist and his various experiments in street theatre. After exploring political theatre techniques in the early 1970s, he returned to the form during the '90s.
"Street theatre isn't easy to get right", Riley remarked. "Political activists view it as a media stunt with great visuals for the six o'clock news. But as a piece of theatre and a form of politics it can have stand alone qualities that are useful in building campaigns and attracting supporters. It can act as a rallying tool in its own right."
The global justice movement world-wide uses many visual elements to make its statements and Riley bemoans the fact that its Australian chapters have not risen to the challenge.
"In the US, activist art groups like Art and Revolution, the Bread and Puppet Theatre and Wise Fool have generated a new form of puppetry and masks that have altered street politics and street theatre radically... They even have a new name for puppet activists — puppetistas.
"While Carnival of the Oppressed is not interested in slavishly copying an overseas model, we are keen to work with any campaign group to develop creative means to get its message across. You supply the humans and we'll come up with the means to make it happen."
Carnival of the Oppressed can be contacted by phone at (07) 3266 4281 or email <dhell@ozemail.com.au>. It also offers a script archive and has masks and puppets that can be borrowed by bona fide campaign groups.
From Green Left Weekly, May 1, 2002.
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