The Call to the stage

by LES EVERETT

IN 1999 Martin Flanagan spoke to the Fremantle Herald about his book The Call - a fictionalised account of the life of Thomas Wentworth Wills.

Wills coached the Aboriginal cricket team that became the first Australian team to tour England and he helped create Australian rules football.

Here is part of what Flanagan said...

"Wills is very important to me because the culture I grew up in was basically working class Australia in which sport was culture. So sport was something I understood intimately from an early age. There's also always been a quest to find out where my culture and Aboriginal culture connect and what does being Australian really mean - Wills brought all that together so he was an ideal subject for me.

"You can't understand Les Darcy if you don't understand World War One, you can't understand Mohammed Ali if you don't understand the Vietnam war, and you can't understand Wills unless you understand the relationship between black and white Australians.

"Wills knew Aboriginal people - he didn't romanticise about them or idealise them, he just knew them. Because of that the racist ideology of the day left him basically untouched, he just called it as he saw it.

"I can only speak for myself, but when I was growing up sport was the first and only theatre I saw, it was the first dance I saw, it was passion play, it was the first place I encountered mythology and legend. When I became a writer in Tasmania there were no words, music or dance that explained to me who I was and why I was here. The only thing I was in no doubt was an expression of the culture of the place was its games."

On Saturday October 16 The Call makes the step onto the stage through Playbox Theatre and the Melbourne International Arts Festival.

The Call: The Controversial Life of Tom Wills has been adapted for the stage by Bruce Myles who will also direct the play.

The season at The CUB Malthouse in Melbourne will run until November 6.

Bookings 03 9685 5111.

Martin Flanagan's The Call is to hit the stage.

Disclaimer