We call it the national game, but only half of Australia plays or supports the code of AFL – it’s as if we can’t even agree on the very basics. And while it seems an unlikely subject for theatre, there have been some terrific plays written about footy: Alan Hopgood’s And the Big Men Fly, David Williamson’s The Club and, more recently, Brendan Cowell’s The Sublime. We can add Trawlwoolway playwright Nathan Maynard’s 37 to the list.
The number belonged to Swans legend and former Australian of the Year Adam Goodes. His legacy – and the controversy with which his career came to be associated – penetrates every sinew of this work. It employs the concept of the synecdoche, where a part stands in for the whole, to explore themes of unity, identity and racism. The part is the local team of a small coastal town, the Currawongs; the whole, quite clearly, is the country itself.
The Currawongs have had a rough trot, having never won a premiership in their history, but this year they reckon they can smell victory in the air. They’ve just recruited two Aboriginal kids, Sonny (Tibian Wyles) and Jayma (Ngali Shaw), and for a while at least, the team embraces them and sees a massive improvement in its performance. But this is the era of Goodes, whose on-field behaviour – calling out racist taunts from the crowd, adopting warrior stances and miming the throwing of a spear – exposes divisions lying just under the surface. Jayma, in particular, feels the heat of this controversy, and is isolated when he speaks up in Goodes’s defence.
Maynard’s script is robust and persuasive, content for a time to luxuriate in the hypermasculinity it then goes on to interrogate. The opening scenes burst with locker-room profanity, with the kind of performative braggadocio that seems innate not just to footy but to all competitive sports. The team’s coach, known as the General (Syd Brisbane), talks of paying a price for victory, but it becomes clear that the price is higher for those who have already paid far more than their share. White hypocrisy, white guilt and flat-out white supremacy smother these Black kids until they struggle to breathe. When they push back, they’re immediately ostracised.
Director Isaac Drandic – aided immeasurably by co-choreographer Waangenga Blanco, whose experiences with Bangarra Dance Theatre are evident throughout – creates one of the most dynamic, vivid and physically intense productions I’ve seen on The Sumner stage. Sonny and Jayma draw on thousands of years of dance history to carve out routines of immense power, but the entire cast move with precision and intent. The actual game play is thrilling, abstracted but also richly evocative of footy at its balletic best. Bodies pulse and shove and fly into the heavens.
Performances are vigorous and finely wrought, humanising characters that could easily become utterly unpalatable. Maynard’s script tends to reduce some parts to mouthpieces, simplistic lines of argument rather than complex and contradictory human beings – an issue that plagues Williamson’s work too – but the cast round them out nicely.
Shaw is magnificent as the play’s lightning rod and voice of integrity, variously jocular and wary; he’s jittery at rest but lithe and expansive in action. There is a great atmosphere of nobility about him, an emergent authority. He’s supported admirably by Wyles, who brings a weariness and sense of resignation to Sonny that speaks of generational trauma, but also of pragmatism. Ben O’Toole makes much of the conflicted captain, and Eddie Orton is chilling as the play’s chief villain, supremely entitled and secure.
Dale Ferguson’s set, a simple locker room that effortlessly suggests the backstage sweat and swagger of community footy, is brilliantly effective – it feels capable of capturing the quotidian nature of country sport as well as the flicker of greatness found in any premiership game. Ben Hughes’s lighting design is supple and responsive, and James Henry’s sound composition is compelling. The technical aspects of the play are deeply considered and integrated, a testament to Drandic’s singular vision.
37 is something of a wake-up call after the hugely disappointing Indigenous voice to parliament debate. Goodes left the AFL in disgust in 2015, and more and more Indigenous players are alleging that the AFL failed to protect them from racist abuse and discrimination while they played for teams that so thoroughly benefited from their athleticism and skill. Maynard’s play throws a disturbing spotlight on the ways in which this country profits from Indigenous culture – footy itself is largely influenced by the First Nations’ game of Marn Grook – without giving back in return. If we’re a team, this sharp and formidable play asks, why doesn’t everyone feel like playing?
Melbourne Theatre Company’s 37 is on at The Sumner theatre until 5 April
