Rainbow's End Read online

  Playwright’s Biography

  Jane Harrison, a Muruwari descendant, was commissioned by Ilbijerri Theatre Co-operative to write Stolen, about the Stolen Generations. Stolen premiered in 1998, followed by seven annual seasons in Melbourne, plus tours to Sydney, Adelaide, regional Victoria, Tasmania, the UK (twice), Hong Kong and Tokyo, and readings in Canada and New York. Jane was the co-winner (with Dallas Winmar for Aliwa!) of the Kate Challis RAKA Award for Stolen. On a Park Bench was workshopped at Playbox and the Banff Playrites Colony, and was a finalist in the Lake Macquarie Drama Prize. Rainbow’s End premiered in 2005 at the Melbourne Museum and toured to Mooroopna, and then to Japan in 2007. Jane was the 2006 Theatrelab Indigenous Award winner for Blakvelvet. She contributed one chapter to Many Voices, Reflections on experiences of Indigenous child separation, published by the National Library, Canberra. Her greatest creations are her two daughters.

  FIRST PERFORMANCE

  Rainbow’s End was first produced by Ilbijerri Theatre Co-operative at Bunjilaka, the Aboriginal Centre at Melbourne Museum, on 18 February 2005, with the following cast:

  NAN DEAR

  Beryl Booth

  GLADYS

  Pauline Whyman

  DOLLY

  Tammy Clarkson

  ERROL FISHER

  Gareth Ellis

  Director, Wesley Enoch

  Designer, Christina Smith

  Lighting Designer, Marko Respondeck

  Sound Designer, David Franzke

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

  The author and publisher gratefully acknowledge permission to quote from ‘Que Sera, Sera’, words and music by Ray Evans and Jay Livingston. © St Angelo Music adm. by Universal Music Publishing Pty Ltd. © Jay Livingston Music. For Australia and New Zealand: Alfred Publishing (Australia) Pty Ltd (ABN 15 003 954 247), PO Box 2355, Taren Point, NSW 2229. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. Unauthorised reproduction is illegal. Reprinted with permission.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Rainbow’s End was commissioned by Ilbijerri Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Theatre Co-operative. The original brief was to tell a decade of Victorian Koori history and to write about ‘the heroes’. There were many heroes in that era, but I was drawn to the ‘unsung’ heroes, and in particular the women who fought the good fight in their daily struggles to keep their families together, house, feed, cloth, educate and, above all, love and protect their children. (And aren’t we all still fighting that good fight?) It’s always a bittersweet experience researching the kinds of plays I’m drawn to write. Perhaps not bitter—a deep sadness for what our Elders had to suffer due to their Aboriginal heritage, sweet because of the poignant stories many of the Elders shared with me. Some of the Aunties that I spoke to recalled the freedom that they felt as children living on The Flats—that area between Shepparton and Mooroopna where many Aboriginal families lived on the fringe. They remember being protected from the reality of their often dire circumstances by their Elders—that was ‘grown-up business’.

  I want to emphasise that Rainbow’s End is a work of fiction—the characters and personal interactions portrayed are not based on real people or events, but I do hope they have an emotional truth. The exception are those historical events which provide a backdrop to the play, such as the Queen’s visit and the development of the Rumbalara housing which occurred during the 1950s. I would like to express my sincere admiration to those families who lived on The Flats, and those who endured similar challenges, with thanks to all those who shared their stories. Thanks also to Ilbijerri and the fabulous and dedicated director, cast and crew who brought the story to life in its first production

  Jane Harrison

  CHARACTERS

  Family on The Flats:

  NAN DEAR, matriarch of the family, sixties

  GLADYS BANKS, Nan’s daughter, Dolly’s mother, forties

  DOLLY BANKS, Gladys’s daughter, seventeen/eighteen

  ERROL FISHER, whitefella, twentyish

  Other characters, to be played by the actor playing Errol:

  BANK MANAGER

  INSPECTOR

  MR COODY, the rent collector

  JUNGI, policeman

  PAPA DEAR

  VARIOUS OFFSTAGE VOICES (COUSIN, CROWD, COUNCILLORS, RADIO ANNOUNCERS, PRESENTERS)

  SETTING

  1950s. A humpy on the riverbank. Clean and homely.

  Also: Daisch’s Paddock (town tip); cork trees; bank manager’s office; dance hall; new Rumbalara housing; and town hall.

  ACT ONE

  PROLOGUE: AFTERMATH

  The song ‘Que Sera, Sera’ is heard:

  Que sera, sera

  Whatever will be, will be,

  The future’s not ours to see

  Que sera, sera.

  It’s late spring, late afternoon and gloomy outside. Inside their humpy NAN DEAR and GLADYS are rebuilding after a flood has devastated their home. Everything below three feet is sodden and mud-splattered. GLADYS mops, wrings out and removes things that are destroyed. NAN finishes hanging a piece of hessian to replace a ruined piece that lined the interior walls. Now she covers the hessian with pages from a magazine.

  NAN DEAR: [pointing to some magazines] Pass those.

  GLADYS: They’re Dolly’s.

  NAN DEAR: They’re dry.

  GLADYS hands them over. NAN rips the pages, slowly and deliberately, pastes them with homemade glue and sticks them, upside down, onto the hessian.

  After a time DOLLY arrives home from school and surveys the scene critically. She toes the old, ruined lino. She sighs, resigned. Until she spots her magazines. She goes to protest but sighs again, resigned. GLADYS fakes cheerfulness.

  GLADYS: It’ll be all right.

  DOLLY: You always say that.

  NAN and GLADYS take a quick look at each other. NAN gestures for DOLLY to come over. She does and NAN gives her granddaughter a hug.

  The lights go down.

  SCENE ONE (A): THE QUEEN ’S VISIT

  Humpy interior. Morning. GLADYS is getting dressed up and humming to herself. DOLLY has her head down over her schoolbooks.

  GLADYS listens in rapt silence to the voice of Queen Elizabeth II on the radio.

  RADIO: [voice-over] …standing at last on Australian soil, on this spot, which is the birthplace of the nation, I want to tell you all, how happy I am to be amongst you, and how much I look forward to my journey amongst Australia…

  The radio fades out as NAN enters.

  GLADYS: That valve… Where’s my white gloves?

  NAN DEAR: Gloves? Don’t need white gloves to pick beans.

  GLADYS doesn’t react.

  You’re going into town then, for all that hullabaloo. Think of inviting me?

  GLADYS: You? I know how you feel about royalty. Even if she is the ‘first reigning monarch to visit our shores’.

  DOLLY: Nan, I need your help with this.

  She is doing homework.

  NAN DEAR: One loyal subject in the family is enough. And someone’s got to pick.

  DOLLY: I’m doing our family tree.

  NAN DEAR: Tree?

  GLADYS: Don’t know about loyal. Just going for a squiz.

  NAN DEAR: Don’t know where you get these ideas from sometimes.

  GLADYS: I’m not hurting anyone, am I? It’s a moment I’ll remember… to see our pretty young monarch and the Duke. I’m not going to miss it for all the tea in China!

  GLADYS flounces out to the back room.

  DOLLY: Nan?

  NAN DEAR: [to herself] Tree? [To DOLLY] You mean the biyala? Spirit tree, branches hanging low over the river?

  DOLLY: Like this.

  NAN looks over DOLLY’s shoulder to see the diagram she is making.

  I need to list all our family members�
�� our parents and their parents and so on…

  NAN picks up a pencil and begins to write over DOLLY’s shoulder.

  …but not cousins.

  NAN stops writing.

  NAN DEAR: And why not cousins? What kind of a fool thing…? You need to know who your cousins are. So you don’t marry ’em.

  GLADYS returns.

  GLADYS: Queen Victoria married her cousin—‘Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg’.

  NAN DEAR: Well, we don’t.

  DOLLY: [baiting her] And Mum told me that ‘our lovely young monarch’, married her Greek/German cousin, Prince Philip—

  GLADYS: My glory, it was a beautiful wedding—

  NAN DEAR: Hmmp. No good’ll come of it. Their children will be retarded, or, or worse, funny in the head.

  Beat.

  GLADYS: Could you listen out for the taxi?

  NAN DEAR: [incredulous] The taxi?

  GLADYS: It’s Aunty’s shoes. I don’t want Her Majesty to see them dirty.

  NAN just shakes her head in disgust. DOLLY giggles, then stops as NAN glares at her. GLADYS gets money out of the jam tins for the taxi.

  DOLLY: I gotta put down where you were born, Nan.

  NAN DEAR: My birth certificate says ‘Murray River’. Born there and, by crikey, I’m gunna go back and die there.

  DOLLY: Nan, you’re not gunna die. You’re gunna live for ever.

  NAN DEAR: Well, of course I’m not gunna die. Not here, anyway. Gotta go back to me old place to do that. And I’ll have a feed of—

  DOLLY: Swan eggs.

  NAN DEAR: [threatening] Deary me, that girl mustn’t want help with her homework…

  DOLLY looks contrite.

  Swan eggs, before I go.

  DOLLY: [to herself] Mother, Gladys Banks. Grandmother, Alice Louise Cooper. Nan, if you love that Murray River so much, why don’t you still live there?

  NAN DEAR: [bitter, half to herself] They forced us to leave. Forced us to leave Cummeragunja. Our home.

  DOLLY: Who, Nan? Who did?

  But NAN doesn’t want to talk about that business and DOLLY knows it. She goes back to her homework.

  Grandmother, Alice Cooper who married Reginald Harold Dear. Reginald Harold Dear’s parents are… Nan?

  NAN DEAR: Is that your taxi, Gladys? [Cagily] I don’t keep details like that in me head.

  DOLLY: [to herself] You do so.

  GLADYS rushes over to the window.

  My great grandparents, Nan…

  GLADYS: No…

  DOLLY: Nan?

  NAN DEAR: [to GLADYS] You’d better wait on the track. Else the taxi will pick up one of the cork-tree lads. [Dryly] I’m sure they’ll want to celebrate the Queen’s visit.

  GLADYS: Oo, I hadn’t thought of that… How do I look?

  DOLLY: Fit for a queen!

  GLADYS is pleased by the compliment but pretends not to show it.

  The lights change to a dream sequence: GLADYS, curtsying, is presenting a bouquet of flowers to the QUEEN. Instead of being formal, the QUEEN pulls her into a hug.

  The lights come back to reality. GLADYS is holding a bunch of weeds. She looks at them as if she can’t understand why she is holding them. She waves goodbye and leaves.

  [Dismayed] So it’s buka bung stew tonight!

  NAN DEAR: If I don’t get on that truck and do an honest day’s work, it will be. And you, off to school.

  DOLLY: But I haven’t finished—

  NAN DEAR: Quick… go. But keep away from them cork trees.

  DOLLY: Yes, Nan. You’ve told me a hundred times.

  NAN DEAR: Don’t be cheeky.

  DOLLY: Yes, Nan.

  NAN DEAR: Good girl.

  DOLLY: Yes, Nan.

  DOLLY exits.

  The lights indicate a time change.

  SCENE ONE (B)

  The radio is heard featuring a description of the Queen’s 1954 Royal Tour of Australia.

  ANNOUNCER: [voice-over] In every town it was something different.

  In Shepparton, it was babies. My word, babies everywhere! All washed and dress and fit to meet the band. No wonder the Duke called out, ‘Where’s Father?’

  GLADYS, holding a very wilted bunch of flowers, comes inside the humpy and plonks down in the only chair. She kicks off her shoes. DOLLY watches her. NAN is cooking.

  GLADYS: Oh, my feet! Remind me never to borrow Aunty’s shoes again.

  NAN DEAR: What about the taxi?

  GLADYS: Didn’t show, did it? So I walked up to the causeway—

  NAN DEAR: That’s not far.

  GLADYS: Then all the way to Shepp.

  NAN DEAR: To Shepp? Why?

  GLADYS: On account of the hessian.

  NAN DEAR: What hessian?

  GLADYS: The hessian they lined the road with. The hessian that I couldn’t get through and couldn’t even peek over.

  DOLLY: What they do that for?

  GLADYS: Stop the likes of her seeing our humpies.

  NAN DEAR: Dolly, bring the wood in.

  DOLLY sighs and exits.

  GLADYS: If they’d given us better houses… But hessian! Like a bandaid over a sore—

  NAN DEAR: What are they going to do with all that hessian?

  GLADYS: Oh, Mum, doesn’t it bother you?

  NAN DEAR: What good is it if I get het up? My job is to get food on the table—

  GLADYS: But decent housing, Mum—

  NAN DEAR: Gladys, get off your high horse. Least here we do things our way—no one breathin’ down our necks. Not like those last days at Cummeragunja. [Beat.] Anyway, it’s Papa Dear’s mission to make things better for the Aboriginal people. [Beat.] Papa Dear had a meetin’ with her, you know.

  GLADYS: Our head of state? He had a meeting? With our queen?

  NAN DEAR: She’s not my queen. But yes, that’s how important—

  GLADYS: —he is.

  NAN DEAR: —she is—getting a meeting with the busiest Aboriginal around!

  GLADYS: Why didn’t you tell me?

  NAN DEAR: I just did. He popped in to see us. But you were out gallivanting.

  GLADYS: I missed him…? Did he say what she was like?

  NAN DEAR: For goodness’ sake!

  DOLLY returns and is listening with interest.

  GLADYS: And I was just hoping for a glimpse.

  DOLLY: Did you get one?

  GLADYS: No…

  NAN DEAR: Gawd, daught, where do you get these highfalutin ideas from?

  GLADYS: Well, it’s either from you, or it’s from Papa Dear, and somehow I don’t think it’s from—

  NAN DEAR: Don’t just sit there, girl. Stoke the fire.

  DOLLY: Yes, Nan.

  GLADYS: Yes, Mum.

  The radio fades up again.

  ANNOUNCER: [voice-over] And just to remind the royal couple that they were in Australia, we showed them how to throw a boomerang… It really does come back…

  The lights go down.

  SCENE TWO (A): OH, ERROL

  As the lights come up, GLADYS is chopping wood with an axe and listening to Bob Dyer’s quiz show, Pick-A-Box, on the radio.

  BOB DYER: [radio voice-over] With what is the tail of the beaver covered?

  GLADYS: [to herself] The answer to that’d be scales.

  CONTESTANT: [radio voice-over] Fur?

  She pauses, waiting for the answer.

  BOB DYER: [radio voice-over] I’m sorry, it’s scales! An unusual bit of nature there.

  GLADYS: ’Course.

  She resumes chopping.

  BOB DYER: [radio voice-over] What is the more common term for an ocular contusion?

  NAN appears, carrying two dead rabbits.

  GLADYS: A black eye.

  NAN DEAR: Whose black eye? You mean, Ester’s—

  GLADYS: Shh!

  NAN DEAR: [to herself] Oh, that. [Giving the radio a dirty look] Thought you were talkin’ sense for once.

  NAN starts to skin the rabbits.

  CONTESTANT: [radio voice-over] A swollen eye? A dama
ged eye?

  Pause.

  BOB DYER: [radio voice-over] Yes! That’s good enough! I was debating that for a moment! You were quite correct, medically. But, to put it bluntly, the more down-to-earth one is…

  GLADYS & BOB DYER: [simultaneously] …a black eye.

  DOLLY steps outside the humpy, throws out the tea leaves from the billy, and pauses. She is chewing gum.

  DOLLY: Who’s got a black eye?

  NAN DEAR: Doesn’t concern you, Dolly.

  NAN turns the station on the radio. GLADYS goes back to her chopping.

  DOLLY: You should go on Pick-A-Box, Mum, you’re ace.

  NAN DEAR: A black contestant? I’d like to see that!

  DOLLY: How could they tell?

  She has a sly look at NAN, then flicks the radio back to Pick-ABox.

  BOB DYER: [radio voice-over] Our next contestant is petite and lovely. Who is she?

  A female voice on the radio is heard giggling.

  NAN looks at DOLLY who turns the radio off.

  DOLLY: [dreamily] One of the boxes has a real mink stole, from the House of Biba. I could see you picking up that prize, eh, Mum?

  NAN DEAR: A mink stole around here?

  GLADYS: And why not, Mum? It gets cold at night here, too.

  NAN DEAR: Just not going to happen. Not in my lifetime.

  DOLLY: I bet there’s a lot of things that you couldn’t have imagined, Nan. Bodgies and widgies, canned food—

  NAN DEAR: That’s been around. Saved our skins many a time.

  DOLLY: —the hokey-pokey… [She dances around.] I’ll teach you, Nan.

  NAN DEAR: Can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

  DOLLY: [dreamily] Maybe Mum will surprise you…

  The lights change for a dream sequence.

  The radio crackles to life.

  BOB DYER: [radio voice-over] Howdy, customers. We’re in the third week of our Melbourne season…

  DOLLY DYER: [radio voice-over] And our latest contestant is Mrs Gladys Banks from Moo—roo—

  GLADYS: That’s Mooroopna.

  BOB DYER: [radio voice-over] Just to recap…You won two prizes, didn’t you? A sewing machine that does everything under the sun—overlocking, buttonholes, embroidery stitches—and a mink stole!