Yorta Yorta/Gunaikurnai theatre maker Andrea James has been thinking a lot about her parents lately.
They died at just 54 years old when the actor and playwright was in her 30s; she is now 52.
Being reminded of her family — and of mortality — seems inevitable, given the subject matter of her latest project, directing Melissa Bubnic's Ghosting the Party, which opened in Sydney last month.
"My parents really didn't have much time on the earth and it definitely makes you aware that you could be taken away from it all at any time."
Last month, the celebrated playwright, director and dramaturge took home the coveted $30,000 Mona Brand Award for Women Stage and Screen Writers for her body of work, including more than 10 plays which centre contemporary First Nations stories and peoples, such as Winyanboga Yurringa and Yanagai! Yanagai!
The judges commended her work for being "unruly, delightful and heartbreaking" even as it spoke to "things many of us are too afraid to face".
James is an artist with a reputation for being willing and able to engage with complex, emotionally fraught issues, both personal and communal, and then share them with audiences – the kinds of topics explored in Ghosting the Party.
A tale of two plays
A graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts, James previously worked as Aboriginal arts development officer at Blacktown Arts Centre, and was artistic director of Melbourne Workers Theatre from 2001 to 2008.
Currently an associate artist at the Griffin Theatre Company, she says she ended up directing Ghosting the Party almost by chance and only discovered how much the work resonated later in the process.
"As I read into it [the play] deeper, I thought, 'Oh gosh, yes, this is really reminding me of my mother actually, [and] of all of the mothers, all of the grandmothers [in society].'"
The play introduces us to 87-year-old Grace (Belinda Giblin), who is ready to die – except her daughter Dorothy (Jillian O'Dowd) and granddaughter Suzie (Amy Hack) would rather she didn't.
"Grace is fierce, she has got a wicked sense of humour … and is really resolute and determined," James told ABC RN's The Stage Show.
Grace's decision forces 57-year-old Dorothy and 34-year-old Suzie to confront their feelings of regret and to grapple with questions of mortality, forgiveness, and what makes a life worth living.
James loves how the play depicts women of a certain age: "This doesn't get placed on stage very often, but what happens to middle-aged women is they get put on the scrap heap. We're undervalued.
The other play on James's plate is Sunshine Super Girl, which she wrote and directed. It kicks off an Australian tour this year, starting at Darwin Festival in August.
While its debut at Melbourne Theatre Company was postponed due to COVID-19, Sunshine Super Girl premiered at Yarruwala Wiradjuri! festival in Griffith – Goolagong's hometown – in 2020.
Produced by Performing Lines, it dramatises the story of Wiradjuri sporting legend Evonne Goolagong Cawley, who, having grown up in a country town playing tennis with a wooden-crate-slat and ball, became Australia's first Aboriginal world tennis champion, despite the entrenched racist and sexist politics of the 1970s and 1980s.
'Here comes Evonne Goolagong'
Goolagong — the winner of seven grand slam singles titles — was a big inspiration for James; she was one of only two Aboriginal people that she saw on telly while she was growing up (the other was Glenn James, the AFL umpire and her dad's cousin).
"For young Aboriginal girls, there were no role models. They weren't in the magazines. They were not on television," says James.
"Her [Goolagong's] success, her coming onto our television screens and in the front pages of our newspaper, when she won that first Wimbledon in 1971, was just such a great thing for Aboriginal people, but for young Aboriginal girls in particular."
Her success came at a time of progress for Aboriginal peoples across Australia.
"We had just passed the referendums. Aboriginal people had just won the right to vote … the Aboriginal Tent Embassy happened in Canberra as well, and that was a really hot time," James says.
The love story between Goolagong and British tennis player Roger Cawley anchors Sunshine Super Girl, with the play depicting how their vital connection overcame the pressures of her fame.
Both Goolagong and Cawley read multiple drafts of the play and gave the playwright their feedback – which sometimes sent James back to the drawing board. They also flew down to Sydney to see how the play was going to be designed, with the action playing out on a tennis court where actors danced their way through tense games.
"Evonne was really, really moved. I cannot begin to imagine what it's like to see your whole life rolled out, to see your loved ones, some of whom you've lost, being personified on stage as well," says James.
"I'm so grateful that they were willing to give feedback about the process but removed themselves from it at the same time."
Generations and generations
James's degree at VCA mixed acting, directing and writing, instilling in the director and playwright an interest in cross-disciplinary work.
"I try to resist that sort of pigeonholing of 'Your job stops here and starts there,' because actually, it doesn't, you know. I think of [theatre making] as quite a ceremonial process, actually … It's a really holistic process," she says.
"My work goes back generations and generations. It's in my DNA; I don't just switch it on and off. I think that the way that my roles shapeshift into that is about a complete cultural process that's really important to me, and that hopefully is reflected in the performance outcome."
James is also influenced by key figures from her family tree, including her great-great-grandfather Thomas Shadrach.
In his humble classroom on the Maloga Aboriginal Mission on Yorta Yorta Country, he taught children who went on to become some of the leading Indigenous activists of the 20th century, including Doug Nicholls, a former governor of South Australia; Margaret Tucker and William Cooper (who is also related to James), co-founders of the Australian Aborigines' League; and Geraldine Briggs, the first president of the National Aboriginal and Islander Women's Council.
James remembers being particularly moved when she read speeches by Shadrach and Cooper – with Cooper instrumental in the recognition of January 26 as a Day of Mourning for Aboriginal peoples, and to calls for Aboriginal representation in federal parliament.
Space where the truth gets told
James didn't always intend to build a career in the arts. She first trained to be a legal secretary, but discovered on the job that that career wasn't for her.
It was then that she found herself thinking about her childhood and the moment where her "whole world cracked open" watching Alec Morgan's Lousy Little Sixpence, a documentary about the Stolen Generations told from Aboriginal peoples' perspectives.
James is astounded that she watched the film while studying drama, rather than history.
"So, a little light bulb came on then. I thought, 'Not only can we learn about truth, but we can step into that truth and actually relive it and it's palpable' … From that point on, I just kept being drawn back to those theatre spaces where I could discern from quite a young age that that's where the truth could be told."
She set out to share the truth of Yorta Yorta people's experiences in her first full-length play, Yanagai! Yanagai!
In Yorta Yorta language, "yanagai" means simply "go away".
"Those were the first words that were recorded by Edward Curr, who was the first non-Aboriginal man to come into our Country uninvited," says James.
James was inspired to write Yanagai! Yanagai! by the native title claim brought forward by the Yorta Yorta Nation in 1994, which was ultimately dismissed by the Federal Court in 1998.
"My dear uncle Wayne Atkinson went on this massive process to interview people, so that we could demonstrate to Judge Olney what our traditional connection to Country was. In that process, there were literally folders and folders of evidence and information that was gathered," says James.
"It was such an epic, dramatic story, that the play just rolled out of me, and that's where it began."
Yanagai! Yanagai! had its world premiere season in September 2003 at Malthouse Theatre.
Waiting with bated breath
James was thinking about family again – including the activists who fought so hard and so long for the community to have representation – as she cast her vote in the federal election in May.
The results set records in both houses of parliament, with 10 First Nations politicians elected to represent communities across Australia.
"We're all waiting with bated breath to see what will actually result; how First Nations people can work within a loaded system," says James.
She sees First Nations artists, and the stories they can share, as critical to the push for Indigenous recognition and representation. She discovered her own family history in "dribs and drabs" and found Elders passed on information when they decided the time was right.
"There's been a concentrated effort to actually disappear us, to put our Black history in the corner," she says.
"But our Elders have had an agenda … to make sure these stories are upheld and passed on so that they infuse us, so that we continue on this epic struggle that we're still all in and that's part of our self-determination and our survival as a people. This is something we have to keep doing.
Ghosting the Party runs until June 18 at Griffin Theatre Company. Sunshine Super Girl runs from August 12-13 at Darwin Entertainment Centre; from Sept 2-17 at Adelaide Festival Centre; from October 26-29 at Merrigong Theatre Company, Wollongong; and from November 9-December 14 at Melbourne Theatre Company.
