Perth Festival Review: Bran Nue Dae is a WA classic
Bran Nue Dae is the story of Willie (played by Marcus Corowa ) and his journey from abusive Catholic boarding school to his mum (Ngaiire Pigram) and almost-girlfriend Rosie (Teresa Moore) in Broome. Along the way, he is joined by Uncle Tadpole (Ernie Dingo) and two pot-smoking hippies Slippery (Callan Purcell) and Marijuana Annie (Danielle Sibosado). It is at heart a coming of age story which explores themes of family, identity and race.
The music swings between rock, reggae, gospel and country and is played by a live band on stage. Fittingly for a musical which centres around family and culture, the central ballad ‘Is You Mah Baby ‘ is reprised in different contexts as the plot unfolds. The jivey ‘Seeds That You Might Sow’, accompanied by condom balloons floating down onto the audience, evokes not just the AIDS crisis which was at its height 30 years ago but the current sexual health issues in the Kimberley.
This ability to be at once playful and deadly serious is the strength of Bran Nue Dae. Nowhere is this more evident than:
There's nothing I would rather be
Than to be an Aborigine
and watch you take my precious land away.
As laughter ripples through the audience so too does the recognition that, 30 years after these words were written, the fight for equality and recognition of land rights continues.
I am far too young to have seen the original 1990 production, and mainly remember Ernie Dingo from the very under-appreciated drama Heartland with Cate Blanchett, so seeing him as Uncle Tadpole was an absolute revelation. He owns every scene he’s in – which is a lot of them. The rest of the cast is full of energy and emotion, and Corowa in particular radiates charisma.
