Australian Graffiti

First time playwright Disapol Savetsila brings his own immigrant experience to this tale of newly arrived Thais searching for a place an Aussie country town.  Cooking is their offering, their passport to new home and community, but sadly no one comes to the new restaurant.

Almost entombed in David Fleischer’s airless, grey concrete backroom, is a young married couple (Monica Sayers and Kenneth Moraleda) struggling with sickness and displacement, young Ben and his mother (an exasperated Gabrielle Chan as the bossy maître de with no customers). 

Also there in the emptiness is the deceased cook, who’s corpse (Srisacd Sacdpraseuth) rises occasionally to give good retrospective wisdom, in a bit of welcome theatrical magic.

Only Ben escapes outside, to pursue his friendship – and learn to catch yabbies - with a local girl (Airlie Dodds).  Beyond narky banter, this relationship is underexplored; as is the two dimensional local copper (Peter Kowitz) who, much as he also likes a joke, carries the town’s brutal message of rejection.  He’s convinced Ben is vandalising the local Baptist church with graffiti – in Thai.

Australian Graffiti is a tender, sometimes amusing portrait of a community – and immigrant – experience not usually seen on our mainstages.  Their story draws us in – with thanks especially to Mason Phoumirath as Ben – and the end is chilling sad, but our empathy is eroded by Savetsila’s overly explanatory dialogue.

Director Paige Rattray, fresh from the hilarious Aboriginal surprise of Black is the new White, doesn’t help to much flesh out these cramped lives in such an empty space.

Savetsila’s play flirts interestingly with some quirky theatricalities and, as he develops, hopefully his work will be more welcome in the theatre than the immigrants were in this country tale.

Martin Portus

Images: Monica Sayers and Kenneth Moraleda, & Kenneth Moraleda and Monica Sayers in Sydney Theatre Company’s Australian Graffiti. Photographer: Lisa Tomasetti.