There is an old medical axiom related to how much pain a person is willing to withstand. The short answer suggests it is a matter of how strong the will is to survive.
Many would struggle to imagine a scenario where needless suffering could lead to suicide, but this is precisely what playwright and actor Nakkiah Lui has explored as part of her true story,Kill The Messenger. In 2011 an indigenous Mount Druitt man, ravaged by undiagnosed stomach cancer, hanged himself after being refused hospital care on the assumption he was using drugs. Though Lui’s play does not shy from themes of racism, grief and outrage, it is also not without humour and empathy. Lui relates this in part to her colourful upbringing.
“As a child, I was always quite dramatic,” she explains. “I did a lot of performing arts and theatre as a teenager, but I didn’t start writing until I went to Canada. I won a scholarship to an international high school there, and I was the first indigenous student to ever attend. I found myself at this school with just under 200 students but who came from 88 different countries. I wanted to find a way to share my voice, and my history of being a young indigenous person from Australia, and being from quite a close community in Mount Druitt. That was kind of when I first started making my own work, writing this little script of monologues. But that’s when the idea of using theatre and the arts to tell stories and share identities began for me. Especially the political identity that is inherent to being a young indigenous woman, and one who grew up in Western Sydney. That was the beginning for me. Then I started getting further into academics, where if you have any flair for the dramatic, people tell you to start studying law,” Lui laughs.
“But law also made a lot of sense. Doing work experience at a legal service, telling and hearing stories, that was what I enjoyed the most. It seemed like a natural jump, but I soon found out that law wasn’t quite what I expected it to be. Turns out, you need to really like it! And so I found my way back into theatre.”
Though she laughs about the cyclic approach to her life in the theatre, Lui’s offhand manner distracts from the tremendous effort that has gone into developing her creative reputation. Prior to her current involvement with Belvoir, she was the recipient of both The Dreaming Award from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Board of Australia, and The Balnaves Foundation Indigenous Playwright’s Award. Lui was also the Griffin Theatre’s artist-in-residence during 2013. It makes you believe it must only be a matter of time before she is thanking people onstage at the Oscars or, in the very least, graciously accepting her Tony.
“Even now, I think that while you’re making work, you’re making it – you’re inside it and can’t really be sure just how it’s going to seem from the outside. I would always go and see the indigenous shows at Belvoir, so now that I’m working here the feeling is just so surreal. Seeing my name on the poster…” Lui trails off and lets out an amused sigh. “And yes, this is kind of lame, but I always take a photo. It’s funny. You have these moments of thinking, ‘I get to do this for a living? What a privilege.’ Being a writer, I think you have to be a little ADD, so you’re always thinking about what your next project will be, what the next story is. You’re in dreamland a lot. I’d definitely like an Academy Award – if they were to start just handing them out I’d go and line up. But ultimately, you just need to make work, and let that be the fun of what you do.”
Kill The Messenger also follows the story of Lui’s grandmother, who died after falling through the unrepaired floor of her public housing home. Again, Lui believes institutionalised racism was at the core, and her grandmother’s death was entirely preventable.
“I helped care for her as she passed away, and one of the things that really helped me push through was that I wrote a eulogy that I hoped would be beautiful. But when I got up to read it, I just broke down. This one little thing I’d wanted to do for her, I couldn’t do it. My grandmother had always said to me, ‘Be intelligent, be funny and be brave.’ She really ingrained that in me, and she was very much that kind of woman. She and my mother came from a time when indigenous people, especially women, just didn’t have the same opportunities. It’s so hard to really imagine. They really fought for their survival and their identity, but still had such beautiful hearts and I guess with this piece, what gets me through it – and it’s hard, I’m having to relive the death of my grandmother over the year it has taken to write, and now in rehearsals her pictures are there on the wall – is that, well, I just have to be like her. She would be smart, she would be funny, but most of all she would be brave.”
Kill The Messengeris playing atBelvoir Street TheatrefromSaturday February 14 until Sunday March 8, tickets online.
