Life's Nourishment: Milk by Dylan Van Den Berg

Dylan Van Den Berg, Katie Beckett and Roxanne McDonald in Milk

Milk by Dylan Van Den Berg

Directed by Ginny Savage
The Street Theatre
3 -12 June, 2021

The theatre is a forum for sharing stories; exploring the past; questioning the present; and preparing for the future. ‘Milk’ does all of the above with superb staging and atmospheric sound and lighting featuring pivotal moments in liminal spaces, directed with depth and nuance by Ginny Savage.

We are taken to a metaphysical Flinders Island off the coast of Tasmania, which is created instantly through imagery and sound (Peter Bailey) – the wind is a constant presence. The design of the rock-strewn stage (Imogen Keen) is evocative and versatile; piles of stones can be interpreted as cairns and path-markers, burial sites and weapons. Ranging in size they indicate the passage of time through erosion, and they can be put in a pocket and transplanted to another time and place.

Spanning two centuries the play tracks the conversation between three Aboriginal ancestors coming together on the verge of life-changing moments. The characters are nameless – known only as Character A, B, and C – which suggests a blending of personalities and continuation of stories. Playwright and Character C, Dylan Van Den Berg has just become a father, which has made him introspective. He wants to know where he came from and what he might be passing on to a future generation.

Character A (Roxanne McDonald) and Character C (Dylan Van Den Berg) 

He and the other characters, A (Roxanne McDonald) and B (Katie Beckett), attempt to reconcile what came before invasion and colonisation of Tasmania with what is yet to come. Roxanne McDonald (portraying an old woman from the 1840s) tells her story with honesty and heartbreaking integrity. While the horror and violence of the past is not dwelt upon, there are certainly uncomfortable scenes and a few tears were shed in the audience. A note in the programme reminds us that “a group of Palawa people, mostly women, were removed from their country and taken to the Bass Strait Islands in the early-to-mid 1800s. They were sold, bartered, and gifted as ‘wives’ to the white sealers who lived there.”

Katie Beckett plays Character C’s grandmother, although the actors are similar in age, which leads to an intimacy and shared understanding of identity. The difference is that “You’re lucky with that milky skin. You get no trouble. You get to carry it all on the inside – all the knowledge. Some of us gotta carry it on the outside for everyone to see.” Character B is a middle-aged woman from the 1960s who is attempting to find fun and explore the world through various encounters and relationships, while refusing to be confined by convention. 

Katie Beckett as Character B

Through outstanding physicality, the actors all embody greatly varying experiences and shifts of mood that are entirely convincing and utterly compelling. The costumes, also by Imogen Keen, are designed to accentuate the details of their circumstances, from the rough-looking, sturdy coverings, fashioned like a blanket, of Character A, to the impractical and uncomfortable shiny fabric worn by Character B as she prepares to go on a date and sell herself as something she is not – “I’m a natural blonde, baby… this is just a dye-job.”

They progress and move past grief, shame and self-loathing by literally picking themselves up and carrying on. Lighting by Gerry Corcoran illuminates, defines and conceals spaces in intriguing ways that create conversation. We all have blind spots in our family history, but learning about the past can inform our present and teach us to be more compassionate towards the people around us.

It is apt that Milk opened in a world premiere during Reconciliation Week. It may be a personal story about loss and survival, but it asks us all to question our heritage and to consider our relationship to the land we live on. Again, the programme notes that, “For many years it was said that the Palawa people were ‘extinct’. White history has swallowed our stories. This is just one of many.” A lot of stories and knowledge have been lost through lack of sharing, but in the words of character C, “It’s all out there. Even the stuff we think is gone. We just – have to listen. We just – have to dance.”

This play is stunning and heartfelt. It is personal and it is broader than one man’s story. It affects all of us, as it should. See it; feel it; share it. That is all.

Upsetting the Apple Cart: The Orchardist's Daughter

The Orchardist's Daughter by Karen Viggers

Allen & Unwin

Pp. 389

I’m starting to think that every Australian novel has to revel in bleakness and misery. This one is set in Tasmania pitting loggers against environmentalists and featuring large dollops of abuse and small-town bigotry. There are three main narratives in the novel: Leon leaves his home (and his abusive father) on Bruny Island to work as a park ranger; Mikki is locked in to the takeaway shop where she works (for no wages) by her brother; and Max, a young boy who lives next door to Leon, is bullied by his father and his best friend’s big brother. All of them experience both physical and mental pain and cruelty.

Leon knows that he will be opposed by the loggers who work in the community. He tries to stay away from the politics, and make friends with the locals through playing Australian Rules football, but although he is one of the best players on the team, he is not accepted and receives hostile treatment on the training field.

The toxic masculinity extends to relationships off the field as well, and it is common knowledge that the star-player, Mooney, beats his wife, Liz. Leon is aware that the treatment he receives on the AFL field “wasn’t out of the ordinary. The guy was a prick.” But no one does anything about it, because they don’t want to upset the apple cart (pun intended). There is a cycle to this abuse, as sons learn behaviours from their fathers, and Leon is worried he may be trapped within it.

There are glimmers of hope and restorative signs within the novel. The book is divided into sections – Seeds; Germination; Growth; Understorey – and metaphors of sustainable logging, and of healing and regenerating through fire are clear. Another symbol of mistreatment is explored through animals. The boy who bullies Max and forces him into shoplifting, tells him he wants to feed his puppies to his German shepherd. Max loves the puppies although his father has drowned previous litters and threatens to do the same with these: cruelty to animals and children is well-known as the apprenticeship of a psychopath. Mikki is evidently on the side of the righteous as she fears for the eagles and the Tasmanian devils with their facial tumours. She and Leon attempt to save the devils, as the author explains that ninety percent of them have already been wiped out, and intimates that society needs to preserve the endangered; the weak and the defenceless. Mikki is herself vulnerable but she longs for a chance to explore and experience life.

Mikki gets a crash-course on awakening and self-recognition through literature. Geraldine, who works at the visitor centre, lends her novels and they discuss the characters: “Then you realise parts of their lives are just like yours. Different setting and time, but the problems are the same. You just have to be clever enough to see it.”

If literature is a way to encounter people and places to which we might not otherwise have access, then The Orchardist’s Daughter lets us into the world of small-town Tasmania where there is hurt and anger, but also happiness and friendship. The novel suggests that if the community nurtures the fragile seedlings, they will blossom and bear fruit. Everything needs space and time to grow, and we can choose which aspects of our nature we feed and nourish.