Honour Bound
Written and directed by Nigel Jamieson in consultation with Terry Hicks
Choreography by Garry Stewart
The Playhouse, Sydney Opera House until September 3
Melbourne Malthouse Theatre, CUB Malthouse, Southbank, September 15 until October 1
REVIEW BY LACHLAN MALLOCH
An extraordinary new work of performance art dives into the world of long-term "terrorist" detainee David Hicks, in a harrowing and profoundly humanising way. "Honour Bound" is etched, with searing irony, on the gates of the US hell-hole in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Honour Bound is set in an eight-metre high steel cage, where theatre, dance, video and aerial performance are blended in an ambitious and highly confronting production.
Creator Nigel Jamieson takes us on a primarily emotional journey, exploring many layers of what it means to suffer the detention that David Hicks endures today.
Jamieson's explicit aim with Honour Bound, is to "pose a provocation" to Australian society, this time about the personal and political costs of our involvement in the US "war on terror".
David's father Terry Hicks was enthusiastic about his collaboration with Jamieson — two years in the making — because "artists can get the message out in a very physical way".
Indeed, Honour Bound's powerful physicality is what sets it apart from all other methods employed so far in the campaign to free David Hicks.
The intense personal struggles of all the Guantanamo inmates are conveyed through brutal athleticism, pierced by momentary slivers of compassion and intimacy. The rhythms of routine physical violence give way to total isolation and encroaching despair, even insanity.
Terry and Bev Hicks loom large above, behind and right through Camp X-Ray, in giant close-up video projection of their faces.
Their presence evokes a sense of providence. Through their stories David's parents bear witness to the trauma of the years of his incarceration. They bring David closer to home by talking about his younger years, giving some clues to how he became the drifter who would be captured in war-torn Afghanistan.
Terry and Bev's narrative forms a bridge between helplessness and hopes for David's future.
Humanising and "bringing home" a man who has been so demonised is, for me, Honour Bound's greatest achievement.
David is almost the same age as me. I cannot ignore his plight. Hearing one of his most intimate letters read from the other side of the abyss, to his ex-girlfriend in Australia, is heartbreaking:
"I don't remember you being into horses that much, but I look forward to going for a long ride and catching up on all the years when I get home.
"I don't suppose it'll be any time soon."
Free David Hicks.