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Jimmy Little family members asked to leave Country Song
by Frances Peters-Little 6 September 2015
O
scar Wilde once stated, ‘Life imitates art far more than art imitates life’ but I would ask, can’t ‘real life’ be just as fascinating, if not more, than ‘fiction’. Such is the case with the play, Country Song, written by Reg Cribb and produced by the Queensland Theatre Company. On the 4th September 2015 at the Illawarra Performing Arts Centre in Wollongong, officials held up the
Protesting at the play. All images supplied
play for several minutes to order six members of Jimmy Little’s family and their friends to vacate the theatre. They were ordered to leave on the basis they wore ‘masks’ in the audience. Despite the officials’ demands, the family refused to budge, stating that theirs was a silent protest, and after having paid for their tickets, they had a right to see the play, as was anyone else. The silent protesters came to express their disgust of the distorted and crude portrayal of Jimmy’s
life. They were prepared to expect the worst, particularly following comments from numerous other family members who saw the play earlier, including my son James Henry who described the character of his grandfather in the play as ‘unrecognisable’. Others who were hugely disappointed with the play were my father’s closest friends and band members Doug Peters (drummer) and Cyril Green (guitarist) who performed with him from the early
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1960s onwards. In their response, Peters and Green stated the script saddened them, not because it diminished the part they shared in his life, but because it disrespected someone who was greatly loved and celebrated. To add insult to injury, Cyril Green is not even depicted as a real person, but as, Cyril the Guitar, with whom my father shares a peculiar onstage relationship in the play. Also unhappy with the play was lifelong friend Ken Canning who was appalled by a brief scene where the actors dramatised a group of ‘angry Aboriginal radicals’ who turned their backs on Jimmy while he was singing, thus causing Jimmy to run backstage and wrestle with whether to drink alcohol or not. “But this just didn’t happen,” Ken said, “And really, I don’t know who the writer is insulting more, the socalled ‘black radicals’, or Jimmy”. Ken’s wife Cheryl stated that she felt sorry for the way they treated Aboriginal singer/songwriter Bob McLeod’s character, whose character came across as some sort of a muddled buffoon, who gets up on stage wearing angel wings and a halo singing Royal Telephone. His niece Esther Cohen was brought to tears when she saw the larger than
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life photographs of her uncle used as part of the backdrop, and sisterin-law Doreen Peters was upset the writer could not even get her sister’s name right. Adding to the scope of his creative license, the play’s director Wesley Enoch defends Cribb’s script by stating “the show floats between documentary style truth and theatrical storytelling,” which really does not tell us anything. Michael Tuahine, who plays the part of Jimmy admitted that while he completely understands why the family might find the play “difficult”, he tries to placate us by explaining the play is mostly an attempt to try to “make sense of the world”, thus using my father’s character as a vehicle to understand racism at the time. In the same tone, Tuahine stated in a number of interviews, he was a good friend of my father’s, even though they only met on a couple of occasions, and that he had nothing but respect for him, but how respectful are they really? At the time they met, my father instructed Tuahine to forward all business relating to the play through his manager, Graham “Buzz” Bidstrup to contact him. Furthermore, no other attempt was
made to consult with our family other than a clumsy effort by Cribb who rang me several times to pick my brain over the phone, just a little over a year after my father died. Following his feeble efforts, all levels of communications eventually came to a halt in September 2013. I heard nothing more until May 2015, when a friend asked if I was coming to the premier in July, which came as a complete surprise to me, making it much too late to enter into a satisfactory agreement between the family and Enoch. Since the premiere, the play has received some positive responses and a few lukewarm reviews. At its worst, one review said, ‘the straight linear narrative of Jimmy Little’s life used as a backdrop on which to peg the other characters, and anyone looking for the deep-and meaningfuls won’t find it here’. At its best, another review titled, BIG APPLAUSE FOR JIMMY LITTLE, said there was ‘a standing ovation at Lismore City Hall’, which leaves me wondering, ‘who were they applauding for’, and how much better the play might have been if they used more reality and truth, and a bit of communication with those who knew him best.