The Audition

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”  - Shakespeare in As You Like It

The Audition was conceived by director Irine Vela, based on a series of modern short plays, by a bunch of Australian writers, some from the Melbourne Workers Theatre, including Christos Tsiolkas and Patricia Cornelius, and some more contemporary plays by Sahra Davoudi and Wahibe Moussa. They are bold artistic works on the new evolving working class and the migrant and refugee experiences.

The Summer of the Seventeenth Doll was written by Ray Lawler in 1955, a play about ordinary working-class people. This was the beginning of a new era in Australia, a fledging modern western country working hard at defining its identity and culture.

An immigration wave of Southern Europeans landed on the shores of this big wide sunburnt island during the penning of this great Australian play, and the immigrants with unusual names who were here to make a new life for themselves dealt with their own diaspora while being confronted with the many faces of racism.

Vela has directed a talented bunch of actors who deliver impeccable performances in a discordant yet seamless production. The auditioning character of Mary Sitarenos opens the show, she expresses resentment and bitterness after failing to snag the role of Olive (the female leading role in Lawler’s play). She claims she comes from the world of ‘Olive’and ‘believes in every word’, has ‘an Australian accent’ but feels racial bigotry will stand in her way, because she is just ‘not the right fit’.

A Hazzari refugee (Evangelos Arabatzis) is confused and depressed. His visa has been frozen. He is a shadow of his former self, stuck in the Woomera Detention Centre; he once cried for freedom from the treacherous Taliban regime, risked his life from the dark hostile world, now find himself with no future.

A young man (Milad Norouzi) h awaits his freedom, clutches at his soccer ball, sings of freedom like a bird in the sky, high above where he can spread his wings. The haunting, mournful black-clad Egyptian woman (Sitarenos) ever-present at the centre back of the stage exudes a sense of loss and a deep melancholy; she has been denied entry into this country.  This is their audition; will they have an opportunity to live here as citizens?

A female Iranian (Sahra Davoudi) on the airport tarmac, is to be married and plans to live happily ever after; she carries a small bag of Saffron from her mother. She is to cook the most beautiful meals to impress her betrothed and share together in their new homeland. But her marriage does not last, she converts from Muslim to Christian, and her citizenship has been rejected, She loses faith in herself and feels the system has let her down.

Sahra Davoudi is a wonderful actor and playwright; she embodies the soul and energy of many Iranian Women. She exudes a beautiful innocence as she ponders playfully marking the shoreline with a tree branch, wearing a bright summer dress exclaiming “I am the only girl left here …” as the play dissolves into darkness.

The lighting design (Gina Gascoigne) is noirish, moody and sharp. Traditional Iranian string music performed and arranged by Vahideh Eisaei is intrinsically part of the performance; she strums traditional tunes, offering dramatic and ambient sounds. The set is minimal and symbolic, reflects the vast open emptiness of the Australian continent, including a poignant hand-drawn blue ocean and real sand that borders the front of the stage.

The Audition is a confronting piece of theatre, with a cast of consummate actors and crew working with material that is designed to challenge and provoke.

If the director’s vision was to play on the idea of ‘ordinary Australia’, like Lawler in Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, then she has successfully delivered experiences that are ‘ordinary’for the immigrants and refugees that live here too.

Flora Georgiou

Photographer: Darren Gill