This is how it happened.
The stage
version of Maxine Beneba Clarke’s biographical book, The Hate Race,
begins, as most theatre shows in Australia do, with an Acknowledgement of
Country. But it’s not the disembodied voice of Malthouse staff. It’s not a
pre-record by a member of the ensemble. Zahra Newman, who will soon share some
of Maxine’s life with us, is on stage, naming the lands of the Wurundjeri and
Boonwurrung out of respect but also to fix us to a place.
This is
where Maxine lives, where she works. But her family heritage is long; born
of a Jamaican father and a Guyanese mother, who both grew up in England. It’s
world-spanning. But the story begins in so-called Australia, even if she is forever
the outsider – according to kids at school and teachers and people at the
supermarket and people on the street and, and, and –
This is how
it happened.
A brief
prologue sets up the fear Maxine still feels as a parent and an adult. Abuse
screamed from a passing car. For a moment, she thinks – hopes – the invective
is not being shouted at her. She thinks she’s stumbled across a domestic
argument. But no, it’s for her. It’s at her.
In the
opening pages of Clarke’s book, the words are there for us to see, to read, to
soak in. In the play, in Zahra Newman’s re-telling of it, in the way she
carries herself, in her face, and through the choice to leave the hate unspoken
and unheard, the audience still feels how shocking this kind of everyday violence
must be for her. Even if some of us, like me, have no real idea.
Then the
play retreats into Maxine’s childhood. The late 80s and early 90s in suburban
Sydney. Kids riding bikes. School projects. Show and tell in front of the class.
Reading Smash Hits magazine. Her sister’s poster of Luke Perry on her bedroom
wall. Drinking Cottee’s cordial and sneaking a Yogo into mum’s shopping trolley
when she’s not looking. John Farnham. Peter Russell Clarke. Frente! It all
feels so familiar to me.
The casual
racism. The fixation on her skin colour. The kids at school not absorbing any
of her stories because all they see is a family from someplace else. The
teacher who wants to know where’s she’s from, even though she was born in
Sydney. Her parents lived in the UK, but apparently that’s still not the right
answer. And Maxine wonders if she’s “a slave” because that’s the only context
her classmates have for people of African descent.
It’s a
whole other world existing next to the world where I lived.
There’s
something quite powerful in this very specific story feeling just a little bit
universal. Where universal means all those 80s references that I did get, in
firm contrast to the feelings and experiences I did not have.
It made me
think about the kids of colour I went to school with. I heard words used as
weapons against them. I was severely bullied myself, but this is not about me.
This is not my story. It’s a story of the kids I knew, whose feelings I didn’t
grapple with at the time.
This is how
it happened.
Zahra
Newman is excellent, as always. She’s Maxine, but she’s also her sister and her
mum and her dad and her grandma and her kid brother. And in contrast to Seventeen
at the Melbourne Theatre Company recently, she always felt like whatever age
she was playing. There is something very specific about the way a kid swings
their arms when they aren’t getting their own way. Or the cheeky smiles they
have when they do. In Newman’s hands, we are safe and always know who we’re
with and what is happening. Her performance is joyous and playful and in the
passages where the micro-aggressions start to pile up, we’re right there with
her. By her side.
Newman is
accompanied on stage by Kuda Mapeza, who plays music, sings songs and is there
to support Newman-as-Maxine throughout. With a laugh. With a song. With some
very 80s dance moves. There’s something so smart in choosing to make this
one-woman play into a two-hander; Maxine’s story is now, through the
collaboration of making this show, the story of everyone involved. The Hate
Race is about sharing stories and passing them on.
Co-directors
Tariro Mavondo and Courtney Stewart have crafted an exquisite piece of biographical
theatre – two strong hands helping to guide an extraordinary group of theatremakers.
Zoe Rouse’s set – swirls and curves on the floor with a half-moon backdrop – suggests
the land we live in but also the twists and turns of Maxine’s family history.
Rachel Lee’s lighting subtly directs our eye and surprises us with its
contrasts and layers.
The Hate
Race is a thrill for
how funny it is, and how simply the audience is drawn in with songs and
references from our own childhoods. It’s extraordinary the epic scope that is
given to Clarke’s family history – Newman-as-dad telling the history of the
Atlantic Slave Trade so a kid can understand it is a sharp bit of writing and
performance.
The play is
so smart in what it chooses to show and not to show, while never shying away from
the truth of Maxine’s life and her experiences and what we might understand
when we reflect on our own lives. And the lives of others whose worlds have
intersected with ours.
Sharing
stories creates knowledge and empathy and compassion and strength. It was a
privilege to see inside Maxine’s world for a while and, after laughing along
with things from my childhood, learn so much about how her life happened.
- Keith Gow, Theatre First
The Hate
Race is playing at
the Malthouse until March 17th.
Photos: Tiffany Garvie
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