This is a warm, engrossing night at the theatre as Dr Paul Dwyer, Chair of the Performance Studies Department at Sydney University, shares his personal journey to a captive audience at Belvoir’s Upstairs theatre.
The main strand of Dr Dwyer’s play is his love affair with the country and the people of Bougainville. Dr Dwyer tells of how much he is drawn to the people and their natural sense of good will and forgiveness. He has been working on a study of restorative justice conferencing in New South Wales, and since 2004 he has spent time in Bougainville, looking at their tradition of reconciling serious crime through ceremony.
There are two other strands to Dr Dwyer’s bond to Bougainville. His father was a leading orthopedic surgeon who spent a lot of time in the territory performing pro bono surgery on patients suffering from diseases such as scoliosis. During his frequent visits to Bougainville, he has spent time tracking down former patients of his father to see how they’re going.
The third strand to the night is his personal sense of regret at how poorly the Australian Government has treated the Bougainville people as a result of their poor actions in regards to allowing Australian mining interests to annexe valuable land in the territory to start a very lucrative open-cut copper mine. The Bougainville people protested at the annexure, supported by the Papua New Guinea Government, and it started a civil war that claimed 20,000 lives prior to the 1988 ceasefire.
It all makes for quite a journey. Dr Dwyer tells his story through the use of slides, archival documents, diary notes, historical film clips and even some pretend surgery as he attempts to describe how his father performed his miraculous surgery.
On stage, sitting at desk and chairs on stage right, to assist with Dr Dwyer communicating his story are the director/stage manager David Williams and video artist Sean Bacon.
Belvoir and Version 1.0’s production of Paul Dwyer’s ‘The Bougainville Photoplay Project’ opened on Wednesday 10th November and runs until Sunday 28th November, 2010 at the Upstairs Theatre, Belvoir Street, 25 Belvoir Street, Surry Hills.