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| (Belvoir St Theatre) |
'Beautiful one day, perfect the next' is the marketing line for the state of Queensland that has entered the Australian lexicon. It provides the ironic title of Belvoir Street's production 'Beautiful One Day' which relates events leading up to and following the death in police custody on Palm Island of the Aborigine Mulrunji (known in his lifetime as Cameron Doomadgee).
More a performance than a play, this presentation is an informative exposition of the treatment of the Indigenous community, the discriminatory laws to which they were subject and issues of justice. The performance is all the more moving because several members of the cast, some of whom I guess are not professional performers, are related to actual individuals who featured in the events portrayed.
A number of those individuals are seen and heard in documentary footage displayed on screens surrounding the performance space.
An important record of modern Australian history.
★★★★
The worst thing about this case is we are not talking an incident from the nineteenth or early twentieth century.
ReplyDeleteYes Andrew, a blot on our justice and race relations history.
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