Like Nothing on this Earth by Tony Hughes-d'Aeth

Author:Tony Hughes-d'Aeth
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: UWA Publishing

It is this Corrigin—beset by a double consciousness (of both “now” and “before”)—that is made use of by Hewett in her great play. It becomes the setting and vehicle of an encompassing celebration and critique of not only the wheatbelt, but Australia too, inasmuch as so many of the patterns and problems of the wheatbelt express broader colonial practices.

The play begins in a dream-space in the dry creekbed at the “back” of the town. It is night and the audience is subjected to eerie and interweaving voices, sounds and chants. The world is not at all that of the wheatbelt as it wants to be known, but an unsettling, enchanted admixture of hidden wishes and lost souls:

ACT ONE

In darkness the weird night music begins on the sound track, continuing until the mood of night and eeriness has been well set. The music is interspersed with a line of dialogue, an occasional giggle, scream, shout of laughter or a coo-ee.

ZEEK’S VOICE: (chanting) Water … Water … Water …

WIDOW TUESDAY’S VOICE: (chanting) Moth and rust … Rust and moth …

TOUCH OF THE TAR’S VOICE: (calling) Coo-ee … Coo-ee … (a high giggle)

HARRY TUESDAY’S VOICE: (calling imperiously) Lily! Lily Perkins!

TOUCH OF THE TAR’S VOICE: (mocking, fading out) Harr-ee! Harr-ee! Harr-ee!

EDIE PERKINS’ VOICE: (moaning) Wash your hands … put on your nightgown … don’t look so pale.

(The background music rises to crescendo as, against the back scrim palely lit, and back to audience, is spread-eagled the shadow of the FLASHER in raincoat and felt hat, flashing.)

FLASHER: Look Polly! Look Polly! Look Polly!

(Wild laughter, a scream, blackout.) (5)

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