The smash-hit success of the 2017 Sydney Festival, WHICH WAY HOME is on tour and returning to Sydney, playing at the Seymour Centre. To celebrate its return The Guide has had the pleasure of sending through some questions to Writer/ Performer Katie Beckett and Performer Kamahi Djordon King.
Tash and her Dad are going on a trip. It’s a long way from the wide streets and big old houses of Tash’s childhood. Two Black faces in a very white suburb. Dad still thinks he’s the king-of-cool, but he’s an old fella now, it’s time for Tash to take him home. Home to country, where the sky is higher and the world goes on forever. WHICH WAY HOME is a road-trip comedy 80,000 years in the making.
Katie Beckett
SAG: Katie, thank you for speaking with our readers. Can I start at the beginning, this is obviously a passion project? It’s partly autobiographical isn’t it, you have spoken of it as a letter of sorts to your dad?
KATIE: I wrote as a way of healing and dealing with what I thought at the time of the impending death of my dad. Luckily he didn’t die and is still alive today even coming on the tour with myself and my son.
SAG: That must be nice, having family along must make touring a bit easier. It’s been a very successful and important show. Back when, what made you think, originally, it would make a good theatre piece?
KATIE: I didn’t know or even think it would be good theatre but I think the audience see the love in the piece. I think if you write with an open heart and honesty it comes through. There is warmth and love in Which Way Home though.
SAG: It is a well loved work and the reviews all mention that warmth and humour but I imagine there are some more serious themes for the audience to take out of the theatre with them?
Yes, there are serious themes. I think growing up as a First Nations person in Australia it’s unavoidable. With the inter generational trauma, and the history of this country its affects you growing up whether you realise it or not. And the greater population need to realise this. They say it takes 7 generations to heal from what has happened before.
Since invasion myself I’m barely third generation. My grandmother was still a semi traditional woman. The truth of Australian history needs to be taught and acknowledge. Before the healing process can begin. If we don’t acknowledge the past, we aren’t fully living in the present, therefore our future wont be at its fullest potential. The past is the only way to learn to move forward and to grow.
SAG: I’m always interested in how a work changes when it comes off the page. Being one of the two actors in show you were right there. How did working with Director Rachael Maza and Dramaturge Jane Bodie influence the final script of WHICH WAY HOME?
KATIE: Rachel has been part of the work from the very beginning. It has always been my vision with Jane and Rachel helping me create the work. But I was just the writer and actor on the piece and I knew once I handed the work over to the director it would be put on stage in her interpretation of the work, like any other theatre piece.
SAG: Congratulations on the success of WHICH WAY HOME, are you working on something at the moment that we can look forward to?
KATIE: Yes, I am working on other pieces. I have just finished writing on “The Heights.” with Matchbox and ABC, a new kids web series i have created and writing, the Balnaves piece and a new work with the Arts Centre Melbourne. All works will have family comedy drama dynamic which I love to work with.
SAG: Thanks for taking the time to speak with our readers, I am so looking forward to seeing the show here in Sydney.
Kamahi Djordon King
SAG: Thanks for speaking with us. Can I ask about the beginnings of the project? What drew you to be part of WHICH WAY HOME?
KAMAHI: This was interesting, as I had just met Kate at an indigenous theatre forum in Brisbane a year earlier. The next thing I know she calls me up and asks me to play her dad in her play. I had heard about it but because I live in Katherine NT I had not seen it. A friend of mine Tony Briggs was touring with it at the time. I asked her how old she was and we worked out that I would have been 13 when I became her dad that was a challenge, so I said yes.
SAG: I think you like a challenge! You have an amazing skill set and creative practice – latex artworks to singing. WHICH WAY HOME has a delicate balance between humour and pathos, it must be a bit of a multi-skilled workout?
KAMAHI: It is all about the timing. I have a diary for two people these days. Constantina seems to be overshadowing me by miles for bookings but that’s okay as I need a break sometimes. However I am one of the singers with Yothu Yindi and the Treaty Project so we are coming up to a par I would say. The latex and art work takes up my time when we aren’t touring with a show.
SAG: Ah, Constantina. Your female alter-ego Constantina Bush, will she be accompanying you on the national tour?
KAMAHI: Yes she will be. She makes an appearance in both Mildura where she has a strong fan base and in Canberra.
SAG: This character though is based on writer Katie Beckett’s own family situation and she is also performing in the piece, does that influence your process in creating the character off the page?
KAMAHI: It does and it doesn’t as I have only met her father recently after getting the play up and running. Kate has an extraordinary ability to switch between the position as the writer or the performer but only is one or the other when the director needs her to be. As she is very generous, I have been able to create and own my character without the influence of her family connection and she works with whatever I bring.
SAG: I recently had the chance to see Ian Michael in HART and I thought then, why do we not see more wonderful indigenous men like this on the Australian stage. Is Tash’s Dad the kind of character you would like to see more of? And how might this happen?
KAMAHI: Yes as he is a very loving and caring character that has his flaws as well. You see both but the love outweighs the negatives of the character.
The only way to see more of these characters is for Aboriginal people to write and create their own theatre with a focus on the positives. As when other people write for us it seems in their political correct world they strive to show the gaps in the divide between the races by trying to write for us from a sympathetic view but in reality it comes across as tokenistic and stereo typed.
SAG: I am so looking forward to meeting him when I see your show here. Thank you again and best wishes for a successful tour.
KAMAHI: You’re most welcome. See you out there on tour some where!
WHICH WAY HOME from ILBIJERRI Theatre Company [Facebook] and Seymour Centre [Facebook] will play 24th July – 4th August. Tuesday, Thursday and Friday 7.30pm, Saturdays 2pm and 7.30pm. Wednesday 11am (with Q&A) and 7.30pm. Tuesday 31st July 6.30pm (with Q&A)