Proud

When Jack’s brother marries an immigrant, everyone’s talking. The backyard wedding is a clash of cultures, where footy mates joke, alcohol flows, and his grandfather disapproves.

This new play from Adelaide company Famous Last Words is confronting, not just for what people believe, but why they believe it. Playwright James Watson begins his story in familiar territory: a young man whose entire life has been about his brother, revering his veteran grandfather, never doubting a word that comes out of his mouth. But when his newly wed brother doesn’t come over anymore, and a family tragedy severs Jack from his last remaining guidance, Watson takes a darker turn to ‘evolve’ Jack from a carefree larrikin to a raging extremist.

It’s cleverly written, a believable narrative, brilliantly told in one act by one astounding actor, Henry Cooper. He brings the audience on the journey with him: he’s relatable, he engages us, and it’s an exceptional craft of both writer and actor where a character who espouses such vitriol and barely restrained hate can still find sympathy in the audience.

Dan Pitt is the other person on the stage – at the back, behind an impressive drum kit, providing crashes of drumskin and cymbals to climax a scene, or build tension with a heartbeat from his kick pedal.

For quieter moments, Cooper’s words are underscored with a soundscape that’s a light touch, yet still achieves a menacing foreboding of something bad about to happen. Monica Patteson’s lights are almost cinematic, guiding changes in mood and tempo, framing Cooper as he sits, stands and lies on the ground. Ruby Jenkins strips back the design to a bare floor, a raised platform for the percussionist, and just three chairs for Cooper to support his words.

And what Cooper and director Connor Reidy achieve with those chairs is remarkable – it doesn’t need much more to place us in the back garden, at a smoky barbeque, in Jack’s bedroom, and the placement of those chairs tells us who else is there, even though we don’t see them.

After the extraordinary opening play of Famous Last Word’s season (Miss Julie After Strindberg), the second production is a closer relation to the company’s offering from last year’s Adelaide Fringe (Home Thoughts), exploring dysfunctional family dynamics and the impacts of change. Yet the stakes are higher for these siblings, and for the creative team behind Proud. It’s courageous to channel these themes through one performer, yet the changes in Jack, and the conflict he brings to the family, are expertly handled. Cooper holds our attention and drives up our tension over the full ninety minutes, with just a brief costume change that barely interrupts the flow – yet that simple switch from coloured polo shirt to black hoodie completes the transformation.

Proud won’t leave you comfortable, won’t tell you that you’re not at fault; the language is provocative, and the verbal violence might be triggering for some. It’s difficult to write and speak about far right-wing groups without falling one side or the other, but Watson treads this tightrope carefully and succeeds in not taking sides. Perhaps I would have preferred if he had, not because the audience has to make that determination, but because we are forced to face the part each of us plays in why people turn to the extreme.

Mark Wickett

Images by Ben Allen