Belvoir’s new show at its main upstairs theatre is Big hART’s Creative Director Scott Rankin’s new play, ‘Namatjira’, in a production that Rankin co-directed with prominent indigenous director, Wayne Blair.
This is a rich, sweeping bio play that charts the life of the great indigenous artist born Elea Namatjira on the 28th July, 1902. Namatjira was born at the Hermannsburg Lutheran Mission near Alice Springs in 1902 and was baptized there after his parents’ adoption of Christianity. After a western style upbringing on the mission, Namatjira at the age of 16 returned to the bush for an initiation ceremony and was exposed to traditional culture as part of the Arrente community, and his life journey began.
There’s a lot to take in the very informative two hours of stage time that is used to tell the great artist’s life story. Rankin’s account depicts a life of great achievement, but also a life lived under great pressure. Due to his success and resultant wealth Namatjira became the subject of ‘humbugging’, a ritualised form of begging. Arrente people are expected to share everything they own. At one time, he was responsible for over six hundred people! Little wonder that he tunred to alcohol for support!
Rankin goes into great detail about the friendship that Namatjira developed with his artistic mentor, Rex Battarbee a Melbourne artist of British descent. In the winter of 1936, Battarbee went up to the Alice to paint landscapes and Namatjira acted as a guide showing him around the local scenic areas. In return Namatjira was shown how to paint with watercolours. Formerly indigenous artists only used to paint for ceremonial purposes. A commercial artist, Batterbee taught Namatjira that money could be made from his art.
There were two aspects of the production that came through particularly strongly. Rankin and Blair imbued the show with a passionate love of painting-this is a taste of what I mean- as the audience walks in portrait artist Robert Hannaford is busily working away at his portrait of Trevor Jamieson. Through the show, Albert Namatjira’s grandson Kevin is chipping away at the mural.
The show also proved to be a great barometer of, over time, the changing attitudes of Australian society to its indigenous community. At first Namatjira’s art wasn’t treated seriously and was disparaged by art goers. By the time that he won the Queen’s Coronation Medal in 1953 everything had changed. The show had strong criticism of the Australian Government for making Namatjira Australia’s first indigenous citizen, with the express purpose that his income could be taxed!
As Namatjira, Trevor Jamieson gave a relaxed, warm, informal performance and had a good rapport with the audience. As his off-sider, Derek Lynch was tremendous, playing a cavalcade of other characters with a great comic touch. The show’s narrative was cleverly broken up with some good song breaks.
The production elements were strong. Straight away when coming in, the audience was taken into Namatjira’s world, looking at a floor to ceiling mural landscape completed in white chalk. Genevieve Dugard’s set design tried to replicate the rough terrain of the outback. Nigel Levings lighting was, as always, extraordinary. Musician Genevieve Lacey was on stage for the entire performance, chiefly playing the contrabass recorder, and impressed in her debut as a theatre composer and musical director.
A joint Company B and Big hART production, ‘Namatjira’ plays upstairs at Belvoir Street until Sunday November 7, 2010.