Jack Charles and Samantha Murray in the Perth production, The Playhouse, 1993.
Photograph by David Dare Parker.
Cast and crew of the world premiere
The Playhouse, Perth
21 October - 6 November 1993
Ron Graham: Bert
Anne Phelan: Abbie
Sally Sander: Jean
Samantha Murray: Ruth
Jack Charles: Dixie
Simonette Miles, Kristelle Conti: dancers
Andrew Ross: Director
Steve Nolan: Set and costume designer
Mike Nanning: Lighting designer
Ruth is a 16 year old girl growing up in Perth in the 1950s. She stays with her grandparents regularly. The family myth is that she goes because she enjoys it. Actually it is her role—and that of her sisters on different nights of the week—to protect her grandmother from her grandfather's drunken rages. While she admires her grandmother's strength and endurance, the visits are associated with a feeling of dread and hopelessness as the routine of violence and appeasement is endlessly repeated.
The grandfather is known as a bit of a lad at the pub and often brings home drifters, often as inebriated as himself, to rent a lean-to in the back yard for extra money. Dixie, a part-Aboriginal man who works on stations around Meekatharra, seems different. He is self-educated and capable of staying sober for weeks at a time. He is appalled by the subliminal violence in the house, but agrees to rent one of the rooms temporarily. He stays in the camp from then on, every time he comes to Perth.
Ruth is engaged by his unusual life history and footloose life style. A friendship develops which lasts over a number of years, through his long absences and occasional binges. When he eventually succumbs to the lung disease that has plagued him since the Great War, he leaves her all his possessions—500 pounds and a suitcase full of books—and a sense of her right to live her life in any way she may choose.
© 1997, 1998 Lois Achimovich
Carolyn Quadrio, 'Award to Lois Achimovich, playwright', Australasian Psychiatry, vol. 3, 1995, issue 1, pp. 36-7, published online 6 July 2009.
Carolyn Quadrio :
In October this year Western Australian Fellow, Lois Achimovich, was awarded the coveted Western Australian Premier’s Award for her fourth play, Meekatharra. Produced by the Black Swan Theatre Company, Meekatharra opened in Perth last year to rave reviews followed by a hugely successful season. For those who continue to pose the question of female subjectivity, the voices of Lois's female characters may provide an answer. Through them she speaks clearly and evocatively. In Meekatharra we hear her speak as a woman, as a Western Australian, as a social activist, and as a psychiatrist trained in child psychoanalysis and in family dynamics. Remarkably, the voices of Australian men, both black and white, are heard also within this complex medley. Drawing upon a truly unique blend of talents, skills and life experience, Lois has finely crafted a drama which is quintessentially Australian.
Meekatharra deals with the marginalisation of women and of indigenous people and with problems of child abuse whilst capturing the essence of the ethos of Aussie machoism which is so often expressed in alcoholism and domestic violence. Those who do not know the background of the playwright might believe that she cleverly manipulated a blend of the most salient and current sociocultural issues. A clever pot-pourri some might think — but only those who do not know Lois. Her story is authentic — this is real-life drama.
‘Meeka’ or ‘Meeka-bloody-tharra’, as we Western Australians know it, is typical of many desolate outback mining towns. The spirit of Meeka speaks well of the isolation and aridness of life for an aspiring intellectual girl growing up in a working class Western Australian family in the fifties and sixties. Many professional women of our generation will (as I did) relate to the dilemma of the teenager and central character, Ruth, her head forever buried in a book. Ruth dreams of a life beyond, a life where she might escape the dreariness of stereotypic female roles, and the alcoholism and violence of their male counterparts. In Dixie, an Aboriginal man, Ruth finds a kindred spirit, one who nurtures her intellect and her hope of liberation. Lois has amply repaid Dixie's generosity to her in giving voice to his anguish and to that of his people.
This script is not only excellent theatre, it is a portrayal of family life which will undoubtedly become one of the Australian classics. Theatre critics have already compared it to Summer of the Seventeenth Doll. (Typically, Lois herself scoffed at this bouquet — ‘they don’t understand — this is a nineties play about the sixties!')
Meekatharra offers a rare understanding of the diversity of ‘Aussie’ culture, and an even rarer opportunity to understand the possibilities of black/white relationships. For Australian psychiatrists there is also a special insight to some of the history of our own culture because Meekatharra depicts one of the many kinds of drama or personal scripting which may impel a young person towards a career in psychiatry. Most of all, Ruth speaks for those of us who grew up in a pre-feminist culture, a time when we truly did not know that we did not know, a time when a girl's dreams of education und independence were almost unattainable and generally regarded as deviant. Lois gives voice to that which few have had either the courage or the skill to articulate. We are indebted to her.
Garry Gillard:
Dixie was a real person - whose name was J. Arthur Dix, I'm told (by Lois's sister). This is a photo I took of a photo of him which was hanging on the wall in Lois's last residence before she went into care.
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