Jack Charles by Jack Charles

Author:Jack Charles
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780143792239
Publisher: Penguin Random House Australia

CHAPTER 9

TAKING RAGE TO THE STAGE

The early 1970s was an exciting time for the arts – particularly for mob. It saw the beginnings of a new direction as far as I was concerned too. Melbourne’s theatre scene was thriving. Great work was being done by the New Theatre lot and an alternative theatre venue, The Pram Factory, in Melbourne, had just opened. It was located on Drummond Street in Carlton, right opposite the Carlton Police Station.

I have hazy memories of taking my leave of the New Theatre. Dot Thompson, Don Munroe and dear Ron Northrope wished me well and good luck. The Pram Factory injected fresh talent into the theatre market. It was a huge game-changer for many creative types. I remember first seeing all the gang from the band Skyhooks, including Red Symons. Steve Hill was the lead singer back then, before Shirley Strachan. I even got to see their first show. They played at St Judes Church in Carlton. I’m grateful I got to witness the birth of The Pram Factory. I got to see it, and the people involved, grow and develop.

Up until that point most of the theatre people in my circles were white Australians. Bob Maza was the first Aboriginal actor I got to work closely with, and I learned a lot from him.

He was an impressive young Aboriginal actor and playwright; someone I could look up to in the Melbourne theatre scene. A role model. I have fond memories of visiting his home on the very busy Punt Road hill in inner-city Melbourne, close to Toorak Road. We’d spend hours together and I got to know his family.

When the Arts Council gave me a grant to start an Aboriginal theatre, I co-founded it with Bob. We wanted to develop a modern blak theatre movement – the first blak theatre company in Australia. I remember flipping through a small Aboriginal language book and coming across the word ‘Nindethana’, which means ‘ours’ (sadly the book didn’t specify which language). It was the perfect name for our theatre company. The response to our endeavour was brilliant. Everyone in the theatre community was on board, particularly the La Mama mob on Faraday Street, off Lygon Street in Carlton. I’d done a few small gigs for Frank Bren and loved the manner and easy way folks at La Mama ran their performing business there. Listening to the likes of the frisky poet and man of prose Shelton Lea was an education in itself. Shelton had found himself delivered to Turana in Parkville. Just another poor soul who’d failed his adopted family and was lumped in among all the mobs of failed foster and adopted kids. He naturally gravitated towards the blak kids due to his own dark complexion. We had to set him straight, telling him he wasn’t Aboriginal, but we made him feel welcome and included him in our ranks. Years later, I’d see him in Pentridge often, reading us his poetry, convincing the few among us mob to try our hand at penning some lines and reading them aloud the next visit.

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