Another Story. A Tuesday evening in the outer Eastern suburbs of Melbourne, an Aboriginal community organisation; a meeting in progress: two public servants, the Aboriginal executive officer of the organisation, the rest are Aboriginal men and women who are members of the management committee. Some are Victorian, others are from interstate. The set of challenges being addressed by this committee revolve around family violence, and programs for family and personal, healing and renewal. The same scene is repeated all over Australia. The problem with this undramatic and local work is that it doesn't fit into any of the current frames the mass media use to represent Aboriginals and Aboriginal issues.
Hedda Gabler. Part of the Melbourne Festival and directed by Thomas Ostermeier and performed by Schaubühne Berlin. Brilliant in very respect and an example of what great theatre can still do. One scene that will stay with me occurs after Hedda and Thea have fallen asleep waiting for the return of Løvborg. Hedda (played by Katharine Schüttler) wakes in the early morning and walks outside and, a wraith-like figure, gazes in upon her life and the tragedy that she has set in motion. The Melbourne Festival audience played its own disturbing role in the performance. Mirroring the emotional and ethical dissociation of the characters onstage it tittered and laughed even as the mood of the play darkened, and roared with laughter as Hedda, having taken her own life, lay slumped and bloody on stage. Ibsen would have been proud. When you are involved in Indigenous Studies you study the varying modalities of Whiteness and this audience was a keeper.
