Hotel Bonegilla

Here’s another revival of this often revived 1983 play by Tes Lyssiotis.  It still has much to say about Australia and Australians and immigrants and immigration, especially when given such a lively and engaging production as this.  The differences between the history – post WWII migration – and now is that back then Australia needed and invited white immigration, but now…  The similarities are the same - false expectations against Australian ineptitude, incomprehension and racism. 

‘Bonegilla’ was a government migrant camp that ran from 1947 to 1971. Migrants from Italy, Greece, Germany and other parts of devastated Europe came to Australia and were warehoused in this camp of bare rows of nissen huts, in which people of ethnic incompatibilities had to live side by side, with little or no privacy.  (The play features a funny but awkward scene on that score.)  Hot in summer, cold in winter, near Wodonga on the NSW-Victoria border, a very long way from likely employment and the way you got out of Bonegilla was to find employment.  

Director Laurence Strangio uses the tiny playing space smoothly and ingeniously.  Watch the numerous way the immigrants’ iconic suitcases suggest different spaces as well as the shreds of identity they bring with them – and the way the suitcases aid the seamless transitions from scene to scene.  (One suitcase is labelled ‘D. Strangio’ and we know it’s real – it’s his grandfather’s) 

Mr Strangio is also responsible for the simple but suggestive design – quadrants of corrugated iron and a blackboard – which is enhanced by Jason Crick’s lighting and the incidental and so atmospheric music supplied accordionist Dave Evans. 

It would be foolish to deny that we get an immediate sense of character from actors’ physical appearance, especially in such an intimate space as this, and here Mr Strangio has cast brilliantly.  Yes, the ‘characters’ here are more representative ‘types and they play up national stereotypes to some extent, but they also breathe life into their roles.  They are called upon to play multiple roles: all at various points have to play Australians – immigration officials, camp managers, block supervisors, employers and so on – as well as representing different nationalities. 

Sean Paisley Collins and Tatiana Kotsimbos are the German couple – he serious, she wide-eyed - but at other times he plays Roma and she a Serbian.  Luca Romani, with a fierce moustache, and delicate Martina Viglietti are the Italians – but sometimes Turkish too.  Loukia Vassiliades and Alex Tsitsopoulos are the Greeks – she fiery, he fatalistic.  They are all both moving and delightful.

Perhaps the play can be described as, really, agit-prop, or perhaps ‘documentary theatre’ built on the real experiences of Bonegilla inmates and conveyed in a series of vignettes.  But it is nevertheless hugely entertaining under Mr Strangio’s sure hand and via his talented, adaptable cast.  There’s plenty of comedy here – some absurd, much ironic - but the text and the cast don’t let us forget the discombobulation, alienation, homesickness and frustration of these ‘New Australians’.  Older members of the audience will remember; younger members might be struck by how the more things change, the more they remain the same.

Michael Brindley    

Image by Darren Gill