Venue: SBW Stables Theatre (Darlinghurst NSW), Apr 30 – Jun 5, 2021
Playwrights: Andrea James, Catherine Ryan
Director: Declan Greene
Cast: Blazey Best, Sandy Greenwood, Anthony Yangoyan
Images by Brett Boardman
Theatre review
The story begins with a dingo in the lands of alpine Victoria, on Gunaikurnai country, looking for her babies. During her search, she encounters a dog and his human owner, a white woman hunter on the prowl for dogs in the wild, to collect their skin for profit. Dogged by Andrea James and Catherine Ryan, explores the broken relationship between modern humans and nature, as well as the difficult bonds between Indigenous Australians and their colonisers.
The 80-minute play is ambitious in scope, with a complex structure that reflects its creators’ desire to encapsulate many discussions being conducted by the wider community. In addition to topics pertaining to environmentalism and racism, Dogged touches on feminism and capitalism, for a work about injustice that cares to be vastly inclusive. Its approach however, is purely allegorical, sometimes obvious but mostly obtuse, which suggests that Dogged is likely to speak more intimately to those already invested in these ideas.
For those less initiated, the action-packed production incorporates energetic sequences, choreographed by Movement Director Kirk Page, that provide an exquisite dimension of visceral excitement to the narrative. Three extraordinary performers hold us captive, for this strange and sometimes bewildering tale of inter-species adventure. Sandy Greenwood is spectacular as Dingo, incredibly detailed with what she is able to convey between the lines, as a First Nations woman actor. We watch her as dingo and as human simultaneously, like a sort of transmorphic genius, illustrating the parallel plights of being Indigenous, of being female, and of being mother earth. Even though her main concern is the portrayal of desecration in its many forms, it is Greenwood’s defiant strength that really mesmerises. Also remarkable are the depths of emotion she summons at will, always replete with intensity, and flabbergasting in her authenticity.
Also impressive is Blazey Best who plays the unnamed human Woman, with a fierce mental concentration to accompany an excellent capacity for nuance, successfully preventing the hunter from devolving into a simple villain. Anthony Yangoyan does a marvellous impression of a dog, both physically and in attitude. The actor is completely believable playing canine in this fantastical thriller, with an endearing sprightliness that introduces a layer of tenderness to an often brutal landscape.
Director Declan Greene uses the writing’s complexity to deliver an exciting show, gripping on several levels. Dogged can be received as an intellectual piece, one that is highly critical of our reprehensible values, and confrontational in addressing our immorality. On the other hand, its dramatics are taut, with characters that interact deliciously, in the telling of a story whose stakes remain high from start to finish.
Design work on the production is inventively and skilfully implemented. An intricate set by Renée Mulder and Peter Waples-Crowe, guides our imagination into dark bushlands, mysterious and scary as though stepping into a living nightmare. Mulder’s costumes convince us of the roughness of these creatures’ existence, and the danger that constantly surrounds them. Lights by Verity Hampson meaningfully amplify every resonance of the text, bringing focus to all the profound messages that fundamentally anchor the show. Along with sound and music by Steve Toulmin, mood transformations in Dogged are accurately and intuitively accomplished, and the way Hampson and Toulmin collaborate to keep the staging unpredictable, is truly praiseworthy.
The colonisation of this land must not be seen as anything but cruel, unjust and inhumane. Commencing with European invasions in the 18th Century, to all the subsequent waves of migration, the incremental and devastating dispossession that our First Nations have had to suffer, is unforgivable. Like the destruction on nature, that modern technology, industrialism and commerce, have conspired to enact, we have arrived at a point of apocalyptic discombobulation, where we have no choice but to better understand the impact of many of those sins, past and ongoing.
Dingo tells Woman to “fuck off!” but one wonders if we are already in too deep, and if the idealistic wish for a simple reversion to a historic purity, can ever be possible. So much of the damage has been permanent. There needs to be a rebuild, as though from ashes, a rebirth that centres all the reparations that have to be made. If the moment of reckoning does not take place today, we are only waiting for things to get worse, before the dreaded inevitability happens.
www.griffintheatre.com.au | www.forcemajeure.com.au
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