I'm not a footy person.
I grew up in Melbourne and I was given a footy team to barrack for as a kid, but I’m not a footy person. I went to some games as a teenager, but that was a long time ago. I once live-tweeted an AFL Grand Final like I was reviewing a play – two clubs both alike in dignity in fair Melbourne, where we cheer our teams. Real time. Immersive. Natural lighting. Costumes to tell us who to boo and who were the underdogs. I get the drama, but I’m not a footy person. That blokey culture isn’t for me.
But I know enough. It’s hard to avoid it, living in
the home of the AFL. And I know that Indigenous players have played an
important part on the field for longer than I can remember. When I grew up, you
rarely saw First Nations people on TV outside of the national stage that is the
national game. A sport derived from the Aboriginal game of Marngrook.
Nathan Maynard’s play, 37, is set at the time
of the controversy around Swans’ player Adam Goodes shouting back after an
insidious bit of racism was hurled at him by a teenage girl. And his further
defiance shown in the following weeks, as he mimed throwing a spear at the Carlton
cheer squad. To some footy fans, he had gone too far. Standing up for himself
was perceived as a kind of reverse racism.
Jayna and Sonny are two Indigenous guys from the
valley who travel to the coast to join the Cutting Cove Currawongs. Jayna’s dad
had played for the team years before. Sonny is feeling like he might be past
it, but he’s also looking for something that’s his own, now that he’s married
with kids.
They show impressive talent and are signed up to
contracts that surpass most of the rest of the team, filled with white fellas
who are glad to have these newcomers along to help them win the Premiership flag.
But they aren’t that willing to see past their ingrained prejudices.
Maynard’s text doesn’t hold back in its depiction of a
group of men who work together on the field but won’t shy away from making fun
of everyone else after hours. They are sexist and homophobic and racist and it’s
very confronting. Aussie larrikin humour sits uncomfortably with me – hearing a
bloke say “have a laugh” after he’s said something awful is like a shield for
him and a weapon against everyone else. This team is toxic.
This production, in a return season at the Melbourne
Theatre Company, wants us to see the beauty of the game, though. Director Isaac
Drandic and Choreographer Waangenga Blanco have imbued the show with exquisite
displays of physicality and sequences of dance that combine the elegance of
First Nations ritual with the hard-man aesthetic of football. These clear
moments of transcendence will stay with me.
Tibian Wyles gives us a Sonny that goes along to get along, because he knows what biting back will bring. Ngali Shaw’s Jayma has his future ahead of him and the world on his shoulders. He’s the young warrior who won’t back down from a fight, even though joining the Currawongs is the major of achievement of his young life so far. This pair of actors draw beautifully distinct characters and a complex, compelling portrait of a friendship.
The rest of the team is filled out with characters along
a spectrum of sympathetic to outright hostile, but in the end, winning the game
is the most important thing to them. No matter how much they argue, the only
thing keeping them in the same room is football. And mateship. Sticking
together, even as they undermine each other.
A lot of the comedy comes from the outrageous things
the white men do. The racism is genuinely shocking, but the audience still forgives
the homophobia and the sexism because “boys will be boys” or something. I know
a lot of public laughter can come from nerves, but it was interesting to see
what would bring the crowd to silence and then to guffaws.
This isn’t a knock on the show, though. I hear that,
between seasons, work has been done to cut back on the comedy to make sure the
drama lands. To ensure that it’s not coasting on easy laughs.
Maynard’s script is unflinching because it needs to
be. If you’re going to tell this story, you can’t really soften the environment.
And if the central conflict is how much Jayma will put up with to live his
dream, drama requires that he be put through fire.
James Henry’s sound design and score are gorgeous and
evocative – placing us outside with the sound of magpies and then enveloping us
with lush music as the players become dancers. Ben Hughes’ lighting gives
bright locker room and slowly encroaching dusk with equal truth.
I’m not a footy person and this play made me feel
deeply uncomfortable because it drops us into a group of foul-mouthed men, who
are so used to taking up space, they suck the oxygen out of the room for
everyone else. But the story of Jayma and Sonny is an essential one to tell.
Because playing football is a large public stage for them, even
if the game and the people who support it only roll the red carpet out when it
suits. For First Nations footballers, even as they live their dream, must
contend with the hell of other players.
37 is a tough watch, but a valuable, important
contribution to our conversations about racism in so-called Australia. This
colony that has robbed the Aboriginal people of so much, including the ongoing
stealing of the joy of footy itself.
- Keith Gow, Theatre First
The play was recently nominated for the Victorian Premier's Literary Award and is on at the MTC until February 22
Photos: Pia Johnson
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