Playing as part of Sydney Festival 2019, THE MAN WITH THE IRON NECK, a powerful new work by leading physical theatre company Legs on the Wall and Ursula Yovich, is about a family embracing life after trauma. Weaving together a story written by Yovich, with aerial performance and innovative video design, this bold and tender story addresses the issue of suicide among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youths.
In one of our favourite interviews this year, The Guide had the chance to speak with the deeply humanist and completely captivating writer and performer, Ursula Yovich.
SAG: This is a very exciting project. I gather it began with Josh Bond’s original concept and work some ten years ago. (Bond is co-director with Gavin Robins) Then you came on as an actor before you started to work on the text?
URSULA: Yes. I wasn’t available for the initial workshops but I had committed to joining as an actor and I think at that time they were having some discussions around the writing and that’s when they asked if I’d be involved as a writer.
SAG: Your writing always strikes me for its beauty as well as the power of the work. Especially in this project where the imagery seems visually lyrical despite the poignancy and sorrow inside the story. Considering you were working with Legs on the Wall was that part of your thinking early on?
URSULA: I wasn’t sure what to expect. They gave me a wonderful clip of ‘All Of Me’ which was the direction they were thinking of … having dialogue within it. I may have had it in the back of my mind but no I think it just grew with it as we worked together. Because they had already done a workshop I was able to see some of the physical stuff they had already created and so I worked along with that. Once we got in and did another workshop, we did more of that collaborative work.
SAG: The imagery and physicality is striking in the clips of the show. And how did the Hills Hoist and tree become metaphoric elements?
URSULA: Trying to think back. Whether the Hills hoist was something I wrote initially or whether it came in later? I know the tree came in later. They always talked about a tree in the original one and I just wanted to kind of move away from that and I imagined them living kind of rural. Blackfellas living out, not quite city, not quite bush. So I thought I had to have a tree in there but the clothesline, I think it was always there. Was part of that … going around and around.
I feel like these conversations were being had when I was a teenager, when I was quite young, and we are still discussing them. I guess for me, this whole piece is about how we move on in this. And I think a major part of this is talking about it … because we don’t talk about it. It’s such a taboo subject.
SAG: There’s a quote from Gavin “this is our responsibility as artists – to tackle this and to encourage people to move through the pain.”
URSULA: I think, with the responsibility, we all carry it but with performance, I understand what that quote means. When we are performing we do carry it, we have to carry the pain and we have to allow people in to feel it and to empathise. There is a shared responsibility. Like when we had the Premiere in Brisbane I was terrified that we would be re-traumatising people if they had experienced this. It’s a fine line and I remember at one point I said we are going to have to cut this … and Gavin was wonderful. He said well why are we doing this? Why would we cut out something that is really important about what the story , when why we doing this is because we want to talk about this. And it was like this reminder to me.
And then people watched it and they do carry it with them, they get it, they understand, they take on the weight of it as well.
SAG: I expect you have a very diverse audience and the play speaks differently to everyone.
URSULA: Yes I would expect so too. Depending on experience. As Josh was saying, even though these characters are First Nations, the loss they experience is not something blackfellas have a hold over. Everyone understands loss, when we go through big loss sometimes it’s hard to come out of that place. Working with Steve Rogers as Dramaturg has given a really good script, it will be special. And a lot of people will get release from this.
SAG: It’s a sharing of a specific kind of loss with a broader audience who understand loss? A humanly relatable idea?
URSULA: Yes, and they are a very loving family as well, most people will understand. Whether they have had it themselves or not, there’s always a desire for love and the pure joyfulness between them.
There’s this wonderful scene where they are all playing footy and the mother joins in but she’s terrible at it, and the kids all humour her, she’s their mum. And it’s fun because there’s this sense of connection, a connectedness between all of them, including this neighbour who has known them all their lives. We understand, just as humans, about that connection. How important that is and how is important it is to love.
When you love someone so much, you gotta also to accept that the pain of losing someone is going to be great. And you can’t have one without the other. And the loss, the pain, the hurt, that’s all a measure of the people you love.
I think that’s why I focussed so much on the younger performers driving the story forward. Because they are literally our future and how much support do we give them, how much love can we give them to reach their full potential?
SAG: Loving is risky. And there’s not just an emotional risk but a physical one in this performance.
URSULA: Definitely it is a risk. I’m always worried every night for the performers. We don’t know what’s around the corner and so I’m always stressin out for them when they’re up in their harnesses doing all that aerial work. Yes it is a risky way of telling the story.
SAG: It’s a work of scale but lead by First Nations artists and that is big culture change for mainstream Australian audiences I think?
URSULA: It’s happening more and more, it’s still slow but the great thing with this is the production did take that ‘risk’. They wanted to support, I guess, self-determination in a sense. They wanted this to be a story that we would could share.
I cannot adequately express my gratitude to the company for allowing us to find this story in our own way. Like having those kids come in, some from dancing backgrounds, who’ve never been ‘up’, to be aerial performers. And they are getting trained, so getting skills they would never normally get another time. Not just performing but being skilled up and I think that’s really important.
SAG: So not only is this show on the road, but there’s a return of ‘Barbara and the Camp Dogs’ next year, where do you get your energy?
URSULA: (laughing) I don’t know, ask me at the end of next year!
SAG: When I saw you in Barbara, you were covered in bruises.
URSULA: I was tired and walking around the coffee table became difficult for me. It was my busiest year, that year, and one of my biggest bruises was because I didn’t walk around the table completely and walked into it … no one else involved … just me and the table!
No matter how much you try and look after yourself those shows do take it out of you. Your body doesn’t understand what’s acting and what’s real. It’s like … I am feeling this. So I am exhausted, and have used up my reserve. So this year I am going to pamper myself a lot more. I’ll have massages regularly and just having alone time is so important, I haven’t been listening to myself. But sometimes you have to have those hard years to know how much you can push yourself and how much you need to pull back. What you need to put in place to look after yourself.
THE MAN WITH THE IRON NECK from Legs on the Wall and Ursula Yovich plays 23-26th January as part of SF19. You can see the video teaser here.
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Sydney Festival 19 Teaser Video