Events

David Milroy's "Windmill Baby" by Rakutendan

8 May 2010 - 6 June 2010

Theatre Rakutendan continues its focus on Australian and Aboriginal theatre. Due to the enormous popularity David Milroy’s ‘Windmill Baby’ received in 2008, Rakutendan will re-mount ‘Windmill Baby’ in Tokyo, Iwaki and Sendai. The 2010 season will again be performed solo by the great veteran actress Ogata Hisako.

Based on the people, local stories, legends and oral histories from the Pilbara and Kimberley region, since its premiere in Perth 2005, ‘Windmill Baby’ has journeyed on five international tours and readings in Paris, Canada, England, India and Northern Ireland, as well as extensively in Australia. 

Synopsis

MayMay Starr, an old Aboriginal woman returns to an abandoned cattle station in the surreal Kimberley landscape of azure skies and red dirt, to fulfill a promise under the shadow of the Windmill. In the poetic ‘campfire storyteller' tradition with musical backing, the play exposes the harsh relationships of the white Boss and Missus and Aboriginal workers. MayMay’s painful recollections of motherhood, loss and death in the context of colonial violence her relationship to the earth spirits helps her come to terms with the past. 

Working as a servant on an outback homestead, MayMay struggles with Sally the cook for the hand of the drover Mal Bourne. When MayMay gets pregnant, her husband gives her a ruby ring and says if her baby is a girl then she would be called Ruby. But when she is forced to work too hard by her white boss, MayMay loses her baby. Sally shows her attraction for Wun-Man the disabled gardener, but Wun-Man likes the white man's wife. The white boss beats his wife and the servants when he gets drunk. When his wife accidentally falls pregnant, is just the beginning of MayMay's entanglements...

David Milroy

David Milroy (b. Perth, 1957; from the Palku, Pilbara) is an Aboriginal playwright, director and dramaturg. He has won several awards, and has toured extensively. He worked at Dumbartung Aboriginal Artist Advisory where he established the prisoners art fund with Geoff Narkle. He tutored at ABmusic and composed the film music for ‘Blackfellas’, ‘Exile’ and ‘The Kingdom’ and for ABC National (Speaking-out). David was the Artistic Director of Yirra Yaakin Noongar Theatre (until 2003).

His writing and directing credits include ‘King Hit’, ‘Runumuk’, ‘No Excuse’, ‘Muttacar, Sorry Business’, ‘Djildjit’, ‘In the Nyitting Time’ and ‘Whaloo is that you?’ and Karl Karninyi (Welcome to My Fire). He directed ‘No Shame’ (Mainstreet Theatre) and Polyglot Theatre in Melbourne. 

His musical direction includes ‘Sistergirl’ and ‘Dead Heart’, ‘Wild Cat Falling’, ‘Amys Monster’, and ‘Land of the little kings’. His work with Yirra Yarkin includes ‘Aliwa’, ‘Solid’, ‘Alice’, Sally Morgan’s ‘Cruel Wild Woman’ and Barking Gecko’s ‘Our Own Worst Enemy’. 

Windmill Baby won the Patrick White Award (2003), WA Equity Award (2006), Deadly Award (2006), Kate Challis RAKA Award (2007). 

While working beyond ‘indigenous’ categories he received an Australia Council Fellowship to make ‘Kaltja’ as based on research of Campfire theatre and Indigenous puppetry from the Pilbara of Western Australia. ‘Windmill Baby’ is part of the Aboriginal Contemporary Theatre Series, No.7. 

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