By Penny Farrow
ADELAIDE — Red Shed Theatre Company is an artist-driven collective originally formed by graduates of the Flinders University Drama Centre. The company is committed to producing innovative, new Australian work of international standing. Its latest production, Because You Are Mine by Daniel Keene, was mind-blowing and will stay for a long time with those who managed to see it.
The play is about 12 victims of the Balkan civil war and the ways that they react to the turmoil and violence around them as whole communities become pawns in political and state games that they don't understand. Keene writes that "the work is a fiction". The characters may be, but the events are not.
A vast variety of reactions are communicated by the characters as Tibor (Keith Agius), one of two young lovers, uses the last of his firewood to hold down the sheet covering a dead man in the street, and streetwise Yuri (Frank Whitten) later steals it for his fire.
In a holding cell Marta (Joey Kennedy), a young dressmaker, tries to remain ignorant of the horror around her. She pleads that it will all be over soon, insisting that it is all a mistake. Kozma (Frank Whitten), an old man who has lost his son in a raid, soothes her wearily by agreeing that yes, it will all be over soon, signalling his hopelessness and despair.
All of the characters refer to "them" in hushed voices — the faceless masters of the war and the brutal soldiers who don't seem to be on any side and certainly aren't defending the civilians.
Keith Agius plays the challenging role of the soldier, once a civilian who lived in the same street as the women he is now raping for a job.
This is the most peculiar and horrific character. He doesn't respond to either emotion or reason, even to Kozma's cry, "What sort of war is this that turns you against your own people?". In a moment of weakness, he admits to one of his victims that he lives in fear of his safety if he doesn't carry out his orders. One almost feels sorry for him until he attempts to rape the same woman. He says to his victims, "There are no winners in war, only those left behind" — a reminder that soldiers are also pawns in this game.
Sally Hildyard plays Miriam, a Muslim student who is raped and abused and eventually has her throat cut. Hildyard's heart-wrenching portrayal of Miriam as she struggles with her situation, and gives up, seeing no end but destruction and death, is the highlight of the play.
Unfortunately, Because You Are Mine was on for only a week. I look forward to Red Shed's next production and hope to see more of this sort of essential, startling theatre.