The Age of Bones
Award winning Darwin playwright Sandra Thibodeaux's latest work is a fantastical Australian-Indonesian production about a boy, Ikan, who goes fishing one day and fails to return.
Assuming the worst, Ikan’s parents hire a legendary seafarer to look for his corpse. He finds nothing. The Age of Bones traces what happened to Ikan – from the day he left his Indonesian village, to his eventual imprisonment in Australia and his fight to return home.
Thibodeaux was inspired by the real-life stories of around 60 Indonesian boys who were jailed in Australia for working on refugee boats.
“I heard of these boys, and my own son was 15 at the time,” she said, “I had this real moment of identification and empathy with their family’s stories.”
The play, mostly set under the ocean, incorporates shadow puppets, projection and live music to stunning effect. Thibodeaux wanted to explore the heavy themes in a less obvious, more visually and poetically interesting way.
“Ikan’s best friend is a hammerhead shark and the judge is an octopus. I started to play on words and with Australia being known as ‘down under’ it was an easy choice. I took the story straight under the sea and it developed from there.”
WHEN WED 29 MAR – SUN 2 APR | WED 5 – SUN 9 APR | BROWN’S MART
INFO brownsmart.com.au
