Jacky

Jacky is a remarkably insightful yet hilarious drama about a young Aboriginal man down from the mission, negotiating his way in the big city by becoming a black poster boy for whites. 

Developed and premiered last year by the Melbourne Theatre Company, writer Declan Furber Gillick uses just four characters to unpack multiple layers of racism in our current post-colonial world, from “kind”, jocular and unintentional to appallingly abusive.

That our handsome hero works as a gay sex worker so he can buy his small apartment opens up yet more doors on this theme. And from the start, when his wild younger brother, Keith, crashes in to permanently take over the couch, Jacky also cops it from his own people – which later climaxes when he crosses crucial Indigenous cultural boundaries.

Guy Simon is outstanding as Jacky, empathic but contained. Danny Howard brings an anarchic, if vocally gabbled, humour to Keith.  And Mandy McElhinney is perfect as Linda, the pragmatic manager of a welfare provider seeking to expand its support to Indigenous locals and thereby reach the associated funding and donations she desperately needs. She permanently employs Jacky so the bank will give him a home loan and even gets a job for the rebellious Keith.

She convinces Jacky to pretend he’s something he’s not to win over potential donors from the mining industry. It’s an outcome which this Caucasian critic felt was worth the compromise – but not most Indigenous people in the audience; they made clear their disapproval and joy throughout the play. 

This moral tug of war between perspectives – and within Jacky himself with a foot in both worlds – is Gillick’s honest, great achievement, and that he’s made it so funny.

Greg Stone’s stuttering and unworldly Glenn, a devotee of old records and the blues, raises the temperature when he employs Jacky to give him some “big black cock”.  To more groans from the audience, Glenn complains that Jacky isn’t black enough, but soon is declaring love in regular, revealing sessions.

Stone is brilliantly inventive maintaining our laughter and sympathy for the prevaricating Glenn: until its lost when a sex domination game goes badly wrong and his frustration explodes into astonishing racial abuse.  Jacky, we’re reminded, is an old white nickname for black workers.

Christine Smith’s set of hotel bedroom, Jacky’ apartment and various workplaces are well placed on the Belvoir slab stage, as are Emily Barrie’s realistic costumes.  Director Mark Wilson has been with Jacky since its birth, and it shows.  It’s a must see.

Martin Portus

Photographer: Stephen Wilson Barker