Australia hasn’t always been the friendly, easy going multi-cultural country that it currently is. For many years, some seven decades, the infamous White Australia Policy was Commonwealth of Australia legislation.
Australia has a sad history in regards to its treatment of its indigenous people which it has been busily trying to reconcile. Another dark part of our history is our terrible treatment of the Chinese during the Gold Rush period in the later half of the nineteenth century.
The worst anti-Chinese attacks in Australian history took place in 1861 on the Burragong goldfields at Lambing Flats in Young in New South Wales.
Last year young Chinese actor, producer and writer Ivy Mak wrote a short play THE QUIET BROTHER in remembrance of the 150th anniversary of the Lambing Flat Riots. She has dedicated her play to her play, ‘to her brother Michael who fended for me when we first arrived on this foreign land’.
Since Mak has fleshed out her play into a longer piece and her piece is being performed in a brief season in the downstairs theatre at Belvoir Street. The production, presented by Australasian Art and Stageworks, is being staged as an associated Chinese New Year Festival event.
Mak’s play started on the right note with a striking display of martial arts. She has come up with a moving work that documents a cross generational Chinese family resiliently survived the horror of the Lambing Flat Riots and were since able to settle here, have a successful business, make a happy family life, and become proud Chinese Australians.
Selby supplemented Mak’s narrative with the use of video footage and Chinese music performed by two on-stage musicians and joint composers, Erhu player Jillian Freeman and
percussionist Leighton Lam. Jocelyn Speight’s exceptional lighting design was a treat!
The large cast featured Gabrielle Chan, Daphne Lowe Kelley, Ivy Mak, Lap Phan, Derek and Michael Quan, and Sean Wang. On opening night the cast did well to contend with the distraction of the constant ringing of an audience’s mobile phone until it was thankfully confiscated.
Nikki Selby’s production of Ivy Mak’s THE QUIET BROTHER opened downstairs at Belvoir Street, 25 Belvoir Street, Surry Hills on Thursday 23rd February and plays until Sunday 25th February, 2012.
(c) David Kary
24th February, 2012
Tags: Sydney Theatre Reviews- THE QUIET BROTHER, Ivy Mak, Nikki Selby, Belvoir Street theatre, Lambing Flat Riots, Gabrielle Chan, Daphne Lowe Kelley, Lap Phan, Derek Quan, Michael Quan, Sean Wang, Sydney Arts Guide, David Kary