Bogga

You’re in the grip of a compelling piece of Queensland theatre from the moment the bars start rattling under your feet, behind the curtain at your shoulder, and somewhere else - distant but determined.

Bogga, a new piece of theatre from Rob Pensalfini and historian Chris Dawson, is both drama and documentary.

It works because it doesn’t judge. It takes a series of indepth oral histories from prisoners and officers and with a cast of five turns their recollections into the story of Boggo Road Gaol in Dutton Park.

The play opens with chaos and confusion and archival 4ZZZ radio bulletins of the infamous 1983 riot. The stage is mostly open space, with a line of three prison cells at the back, but the audience is vulnerable from the sides and the aisle. From the riot, Pensalfini delves behind the headlines of the 70s and 80s and into the private lives of those who lived or worked at Bogga.

The actors introduce us to some of the most notorious residents of this correctional facility.

There’s BBQ Bailey, who set himself on fire but didn’t die. He was taken to hospital where a prison guard recalls watching over him as he screamed through the first night. And there’s Bernie Ralph, the screw (prison officer) who took 13 minutes to bleed out on the floor of the bootshop after being hit on the head by John “Boots” Hobson and who was thereafter “seen” roaming the gaol at night.

The ensemble cast: James Elliott, Ellen Hardisty, Paige Poulier, Johancee Theron and Chris Vaag, are consumed by these real people as they tell their stories. There is grace in some, the stench of death in others, genius and madness combined, ingenuity, a fear of darkness, the distress caused by a whistling kettle.

One guard recalls the moment he saw a cockroach exit one prison cell and move to another. It had been turned into a mule by strapping the contraband to its back, attaching a piece of string and then pulling off certain legs to make it continually pull left into and along the wall between two cells.

Sensation aside, the caring moments between hardened criminals, between officers and prisoners, and the community that prison life creates, holds its own interest and poses questions on how society views prisoners and how prisoners cope with life on the inside and outside of gaol.

For an Ensemble well versed in the iambic pentameter of Shakespeare, it has found its own rhythm in the language of Bogga (there’s even a Bogga slang section in the program so you can brush up on your gaol talk too). However the Queensland Shakespeare Ensemble has a long history of working with inmates through Shakespeare to bring about positive change so it was never going to have a problem with language.

A Brisbane City Council community history grant helped bring this production to the stage. It’s on for one more weekend. If you’re a history buff or love original Queensland theatre, put Bogga in your calendar now.

Debra Bela

Images: Benjamin Prindable Photography.