They Saw A Thylacine by Human Animal Exchange. Created and performed by
Justine Campbell and Sarah Hamilton. Q Theatre, Queanbeyan. Wednesday 27 April,
1.00pm & 8.00pm. Thursday 28 April, 10:30am
A wisp of a piece called They Saw a Thylacine has just drifted
briefly through the Q Theatre for a three-performance visit. In an hour two women tell their
thylacine stories and it is easy to see why the elegant and elusive Tasmanian
tiger seems to have become extinct. One of the two women is a tiger tracker who
celebrates the animal’s beauty and intelligence. The other, the daughter of the
zookeeper looking after the last one, is part of a last attempt to hold onto
what is vanishing.
Sarah Hamilton is the tracker, Justine Campbell is the zookeeper’s
daughter, both undervalued for their knowledge and perception. The tracker
battles with a predatory hunter she meets on the way. The knowledge of the
daughter that might have saved the last thylacine is ignored by the men who
take over the zoo after her father dies.
On a bare white stage Hamilton and Campbell also growl their
way disturbingly through those male voices. A culture blind to the natural
world and its values surrounds the two women. Human beings as a species do not
come out of this story well.
A brief review for a short, poetic and haunting piece.
