Aboriginal story offers harsh truths

Jack Charles V The Crown ILBIJERRI Theatre Company (Melbourne, Australia) NAC Studio Reviewed Thursday

At one point in this remarkable show about his own life as a damaged indigenous person in Australia and the collective experience of colonized Aboriginal people almost anywhere, Jack Charles sings the 1957 Connie Francis hit Who’s Sorry Now?

It seems an odd choice; this very white song by a very white singer from a very white time in America, but while you know it’s meant to be ironic (after all, how sorry are we really about our treatment of indigenous peoples?), Charles’ delivery leaves the import entirely up to us.

It’s a sly bit of performing, the kind of thing the 72-year-old Charles slips now and then into his compelling account of being a member of the Stolen Generation who was torn from his mother as an infant to become a ward of the state, spent years as the sole indigenous person in a boys school, wound up as an adult who ricocheted between a career on stage and film and a life as a junkie, cat burglar and repeat prisoner, and finally broke free of drugs and crime to live a fulfilling life.

Charles’ show, which he cowrote with John Romeril, opens with a video from Bastardy, the 2009 documentary about him. As we watch Charles on film nonchalantly shoot up heroin — the clip is followed by mug shots and a list of his offences — present-day Charles, an accomplished potter, bends over a wheel making a pot.

The juxtaposition of a life badly off-course and the physical presence of a man serenely creating something beautiful is powerful.

Much of Charles’ story rings uncomfortably true for us in Canada and the show is part of the NAC’s focus on indigenous storytelling and reconciliation during January and February. In fact, Charles briefly but pointedly makes the Canadian link in his line, apparently adjusted for his tour to Ottawa, Calgary and Vancouver, “like your Residential schools, I grew up ignorant of my Aboriginal heritage.” It’s a stinging moment for Canadian audiences.

Directed by Rachael Maza, Charles packs a lot into his 75-minute show including a sketch of the history of Australian Aboriginal theatre and film of which he was a prime mover. Running until Jan. 16. Tickets: NAC box office, Ticketmaster outlets, 1-888-991-2787, nac-cna.ca.