Waltzing The Wilarra. Written and composed by David Milroy.
Directed by Brittany Shipway. Original Perth production directed by Wesley Enoch with set design by Jacob Nash and lighting by Trent Suidgeest. Produced by Yirra Yaakin Theatre Company. Touring production staged by HIT Productions. Q Theatre. August 15-16 2025. Bookings: 62856290. , theq.net.au
Reviewed by Peter Wilkins
Touring the country’s regional towns with a show can be a tricky business. Last night HIT Production’s Waltzing The Wilarra bumped in to The Q Theatre for two days and three performances only before bumping out and heading off to its next venue in an exhaustive nation-wide itinerary. The company is to be commended on bringing theatre that deals with important issues to Australia’s regions and HIT Productions has an enviable record of touring well staged and well-acted productions of Australian works that deal with issues pertinent to an Australian community. Waltzing The Wilarra is no exception to the high production values that Christine Harris has demanded of her casts and creatives. However, with so little time to get the technical side of the production working well, and the sound levels of the miking especially, the performance can fall short.
But it is not this alone that made last night’s show less satisfying than it deserved to be. Writer and composer David Milroy has attempted to crowd his play with a potpourri of song and music, vaudeville satire and drama, so that the power of the drama becomes interrupted by the introduction of different conventions. The drama of the piece is not without impact. Wilarra is an outback country town in Western Australia where black and white residents live in relative harmony and come together to their club for entertainment. Jack is a returned and damaged soldier from the war. He is an alcoholic and married to Elsa, a victim of the Stolen Generation. Charlie is also a member of the Stolen Generation but keeps this chapter of his life to himself. He and Jack are brothers in arms not blood. Nanny is Elsa’s mother and has also raised the white girl, Fay, who was deserted by her mother. It is a source of bitter resentment by Elsa. Mr. Mack is the aboriginal host of the club, introduces the band members and runs the club’s competitions. Charlie is in love with Elsa and Fay is in love with Charlie but Elsa doesn’t love Charlie and Charlie doesn’t love Fay and Jack abuses Elsa who dotes on him. Tensions are exposed in the first half, but it is in the second half that they erupt in a flurry of confrontation. Nanny and Jack have both died when, forty years later, the club members return to remember the early days and protest against the removal of the club during a mining development. Hidden grievances are exposed. If family conflicts cannot be reconciled, what hope have generational and racial issues. And yet, Waltzing The Wilarra promises hope when Charlie’s death becomes a catalyst for reconciliation beneath an aboriginal flag and the removal of colonial shackles.
I have no programme to help an understanding of intention. The issues of love, loss, discrimination, jealousy, betrayal and bitter rivalry are lucid enough in Milroy’s play and Shipway’s production. Unfortunately, I could not decipher the lyrics in the most part because of poor sound mixing and diction with the exception of Lisa Maza’s perfect clarity as Nanny. Similarly. high pitched squeals and register by the vaudevillian caricatures left me bewildered. I suspect that Milroy’s Waltzing at Wilarra lacks the trust in the power of the lyrics and the text to capture and persuade. The songs were by and large incomprehensible and I thoroughly recommend a careful sound check in each venue. A play that deals with such relevant issues in post Voice Referendum Australia deserves to be clearly heard and effectively understood.
I notice while browsing the web that the original production appears to have been directed by Wesley Enoch and performed in a single venue over a substantial season. The touring production’s hard working and able performers deserve better support. Notwithstanding my reaction to the touring production difficulties experienced at The Q, audiences will find Milroy’s Australian musical largely entertaining and thought –provoking . A more tightly directed and edited work would make this production of Waltzing The Wilarra more impactful.
