The Governor's Family
By Beatrix Christian
Directed by Neil Armfield
Cast: Aaron Blabey, Arthur Dignam, David Field, Gillian Jones, Jacqueline McKenzie, Urshula Yovich
Company B, at the Belvoir Street Theatre, Sydney, until June 15.
Review by Allen Myers
Although set in Sydney of a century ago, Beatrix Christian's powerful new play is supremely topical. Its riveting characterisations and plot development — beginning slowly but gathering pace with the inevitability of an avalanche — tell us a great deal about today's racial politics.
The governor's family could well serve as a textbook case for sociological studies of dysfunctionality. While the governor himself (Arthur Dignam) stands, initially, as a pillar of Victorian respectability and devotion to duty, his wife Helena (Gillian Jones), part of the European "drooling aristocracy", has withdrawn from virtually all human contact except with their son Gerald (Aaron Blabey); she floats about the stage, circling the other characters like one of the Furies bent on avenging some unnamed crime.
Gerald, a would-be poet or would-be almost anything, is trying to slip the maternal apron strings but is always pulled back into line by Helena's regular doses of opium. His twin sister Lara (Jacqueline McKenzie) is determined to be a rebel — socially, politically and sexually — if only to break through the emotional anaesthetic in which the family seems bathed.
Lara's political interests put her in contact with Tammey Lee Mackenzie (David Field), the Irish leader of a socialist workers' group.
Mackenzie's younger brother is one of six white men who have admitted the savage gang rape of Frances (Urshula Yovich), a young part-Aboriginal woman, whom the governor brings into his official residence for protection. Under the law, a death sentence is mandatory; whether it will be carried out or commuted is the decision of the governor.
Dramatically and politically, Frances is the centre around which the other characters are moving, even when they revolve in complicated minor orbits around each other. Unable to relate directly to one another, the Europeans transform Frances into a sort of transmission belt for their interactions. This guarantees that they will never relate to Frances herself as what she is, and never really make contact with each other.
So, for Mackenzie, Frances is an inferior creature whose protection by the governor is a provocation which can be used to rally white workers against the crown. For the governor, she is a weapon to be turned against workers, allowing the governor and the system he represents to be portrayed as the upholders of civilisation and impartial justice.
Gerald, Lara and Helena each also converts Frances into an emblem of their own needs or fears, almost without realising it.
But there are wheels within wheels here. The play unfolds both forward and back in time, and we are continually learning of past events in the family's history that put new light on their present actions.
Anyone familiar with Sydney theatre expects the best of a play by Neil Armfield, and once again he more than meets expectations. Also deserving special mention is Anna Borghesi's set.
This is a drama whose complexities allow it to present truths without a hint of preaching. It's a play that tells us much about where we are and how we got here. I'm sure John Howard would walk out half way through the first act.