The Visitors (Sydney Theatre Co.) ★★★★

Written by Jane Harrison. Sydney Theatre Co. Sydney Opera House. 11 Sep – 14 Oct, 2023 Riverside Theatres from 19 – 21 Oct, 2023 and Illawarra Performing Arts Centre from 25 – 28 Oct, 2023

Jane Harrison’s The Visitors isn’t about The Voice debate, but the timing is perhaps serendipitous. As Australia prepares to hold a referendum about enshrining an indigenous “voice to parliament” (i.e. an indigenous-led advisory body that will speak to the government) into Australia’s constitution, The Visitors makes us think about pre-colonial Australia and the impact the Western invasion had on native peoples. And it does so with a light touch and a laugh.

Six clan leaders, and one younger proxy, gather to observe the boats approaching their land and discuss how best to deal with the situation. Should they present a show of force to scare them away, or treat them like visitors and offer hospitality? Like all meetings, it has a protocol to be followed, that not everyone appreciates. It’s slow going, slower than they’d like, as they look at it from multiple angles. They don’t know how important this day will be, or how the seeds of destruction have already been planted among them.

Muruwari playwright Jane Harrison has written a play that’s laden with foreboding, laced with humour (at times it’s the other way around). Treating the gathering like a corporate meeting, reframes these elders as people we all know. Some nice, slightly anachronistic jokes are well presented, getting laughs from the audience. Putting them in modern, office attire breaks down the barriers between the predominantly white audience and the First Nations actors on stage.

Just as we look at the news and hear a multiplicity of indigenous opinions discussing the referendum, here we get the same – different clans with different views on who these people are, what they want and how best to handle them? Oh the irony if they’ve managed to “turn back the boats” then and there!

Even with all the character-based humour, Harrison never lets us forget what’s coming. As the elders pass on news about how the white people keep coughing and sneezing, our knowledge of how the colonists introduced smallpox to the unprotected indigenous communities raises alarm bells. Even if the boats never landed, people would soon die. The set, covered in discarded shells, seems to hint at the disaster to come.

Told without any breaks (the play is one, 75-minute scene in real time) director Wesley Enoch keeps things fluid and moving. This cast feels like a well-oiled machine, moving through the text with a keen sense of pace, comedy and drama. Pertame & Tiwi actor Joseph Wunujaka Althouse; Wiradjuri & Ngunnawal actor Luke Carroll; Yunkunytjatjara, Warrigmal & South Sea Islander actor Elaine Crombie; Noongar & Budmiya actor Kyle Morrison, Wiradjuri & Gamilaraay actor Beau Dean Riley Smith; Biripi actor Guy Simon, and Gumbaynggirr & Wiradjuri actor Dalara Williams, all have an authenticity to them that rises above their modern dress and mannerisms. As the final moments strip the artifice away, they stand tall.

I hope people won’t be so burnt out by the political rancour surrounding The Voice that they avoid The Visitors (I attended the first performance after Opening Night and it was about 90% full). It stands alone as a great piece of Australian drama and it was timed as part of the Opera House’s anniversary, not the political moment it finds itself in. The play reframes a moment in our history to present it back to us fresh. There is no judgement in its voice. Instead it presents us with a chance to appreciate what came before, to help inform our actions moving forward.