THEATRE
Yellingbo ★★★
La Mama, until March 20
Underneath this suburban three-hander lies an indictment of Australia’s treatment of refugees. It’s a subject in the headlines once more, with the war in Ukraine causing millions to flee their homes and, from last week, the Australian government granting temporary visas to those seeking asylum from Russia’s unprovoked aggression.
Secrets come to light in Yellingbo.Credit:Darren Gill
“Temporary” is the operative word. Australia’s willingness to provide short-term sanctuary to people escaping war zones shouldn’t obscure the fact that the moment their visa expires they become illegal immigrants, and a cruel limbo may await them.
That is precisely the situation envisaged by Tee O’Neill’s Yellingbo.
Initially, the play appears to centre on an awkward middle-aged love triangle. A true-blue Aussie husband (Jeremy Stanford) and wife (Fiona Macleod) have their affectionate routine disrupted by the sudden and unexpected arrival of his ex-girlfriend Cat (Jude Beaumont), who vanished overseas and has remained uncontactable for a decade.
Yet all is not as it seems and as the veneer of a relaxed and comfortable rom-com peels away, the fate of the trio gets enmeshed in the story of a young woman fleeing genocidal conflict in the 1990s, only to languish for years in an outback detention centre.
I can’t reveal more without spoilers. Suffice to say, a series of revelations ups the dramatic stakes considerably.
The surface comedy is burnished to wrong-footing effect before stripping the pretence. Beaumont and Macleod are especially entertaining as they defend their turf and run rings around the unwitting man – apparently vying for his affection, though there’s more going on than that – and remain convincing as the desolating dilemma they face becomes clear.
Stanford briskly sketches a well-intentioned but cowardly everybloke, doing the best he can in an under-drawn part.
But, frankly, O’Neill has botched this character. She comes close to making a blind equivalence between a social issue and individual psychology: they’re not the same thing at all and to assume they are compromises emotional authenticity.
Still, even if you don’t believe in its final twist of the knife, Yellingbo – (“today” in the language of the Woiwurrung) – feels timely, and the suspense it achieves as it shifts from rom-com to psychological thriller will keep you on the edge of your seat.
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