Rodney Croome was one of many LGBTI activists arrested at Salamanca Markets in late 1988. Photo credit: Roger Lovell.
Foodie heaven, Hobart’s Salamanca Market comes to life every Saturday as tourists and locals alike swarm in search of everything from organic foods to handmade craft, clothing, books and cheese.
But in late 1988, the Market witnessed activity of a very different kind, as police made more than 100 arrests over several months, in response to members of the Tasmanian Gay and Lesbian Rights Group flouting a council ban on a stall featuring petitions to decriminalise homosexual activity.
The Salamanca arrests sparked a long and often bitter campaign against Tasmania’s draconian anti-gay laws, which were eventually repealed – after appeals to the United Nations Human Rights Committee – in 1997.
In the process, campaigners won the hearts and minds of many Tasmanians, with support for reform increase from 33% in 1988 to almost 60% in 1997 – the highest level of support for gay law reform in any Australian state.
On Monday (22 September), a new piece of verbatim theatre, The Campaign, opened in Hobart on the 30th anniversary of the first Salamanca arrests. Based on a series of new interviews with many of the original participants of the campaign, as well as newspaper articles and Hansard, the play is an active act of remembrance, according to its Melbourne-based playwright, Campion Decent.
‘It seemed to me that it’s one of those stories that runs the risk of being lost; that we forget these stories, and I thought it would be wonderful to record it in some way, through a creative or theatrical response,’ Decent said.
‘It seemed to me that it’s one of those stories that runs the risk of being lost, and I thought it would be wonderful to record it in some way.’
It was also important to preserve stories of grassroots activism, and to celebrate them on stage, Decent added.
‘I thought, “how many stories of activism do we actually see in our theatres and on our stages? Especially LGBTI activism?” Because a lot of LGBTI representation is relationship-based or whatever, and I thought, this is kind of political but it’s also grassroots community activism and so I found that community dynamic quite fascinating. And also the fact that – it sounds trite, but it led to change. We came out of the darkness into the light, if you like.
‘Even though there’s a fair bit of darkness in there, you kind of go somewhere, you go on a journey. It’s a funny kind of a story because it’s actually got an inherent dramatic structure to it, you know? It’s got your protagonists, your antagonists, you turning points, catharsis – it’s got all these elements that we can look for – I’m not saying you have to have them – in theatre. This story has got them all,’ Decent told ArtsHub.
Read: We Were There: the women HIV/AIDS left behind
Director Matt Scholten, who is based in Queensland, came up with the idea of The Campaign on a visit to Hobart, having been inspired by Justy Phillips’ public artwork Yellow Line, installed at Salamanca Place in 2013. He then approached Decent about writing the play, who eagerly accepted.
Decent describes his and Scholten’s roles as facilitators of the story; they have shaped the words which tell the story, but not the story itself. Having some distance from it – being observers of the Tasmanian Gay and Lesbian Rights Group’s actions rather than active participants (at the time, Decent was editor of the LGBTI community newspaper Sydney Star Observer) also gave the pair a valuable degree of critical distance.
‘Sometimes you can be too close to a story and so I think a little bit of distance can frame it in a way that someone right inside it may not be able to do,’ said Decent.
‘And as long as you are respectful in terms of the protocols – we had all of those protocols in place of gathering stories, of showing them transcripts, of giving them the opportunity to correct anything, and so we’ve kind of honoured that. And I think as long as you do that you can, it becomes a trust exercise for the participants, and I think we’ve kind of won that trust.’
TASMANIAN STORIES
One participant whose trust was won early in the development of The Campaign is veteran gay rights activist Rodney Croome AM, who was just 24 at the time he and his peers were first arrested at Salamanca.
Made a Member of the Order of Australia in 2003 for his service to the community as a human rights advocate, Croome was in the audience at Peacock Arts Centre on Monday night for The Campaign’s world premiere.
Describing the play as ‘top notch theatre,’ Croome said the experience of watching the production was ‘overwhelming for me, because it touched on so many important moments that I lived through, and brought back so many memories, good and bad, from the 1990s’.
He continued: ‘It was odd seeing myself played on stage and hearing my own words spoken by another person but at the same time I was pleased that I was played so well by Ben [Winkle]. As much as I’m able to step back from what the play is about – and that’s difficult because I was so intimately involved with the events being described – what I see is a really great play.
‘I’m amazed and obviously very pleased at what Campion was able to distil from all of the interviews he did and the newspapers he read and the Hansard he ploughed through – that he was able to distil from that a really compelling narrative. He was able to weave together so many disparate perspectives, so many different people, into what is really a wonderful and insightful piece of work.’
Tasmanian Theatre Company & Blue Cow Theatre’s The Campaign. Image supplied
Equally importantly, Decent has crafted a quintessentially Tasmanian play, Croome added.
‘There are quite a few characters presented in the play but one character above all is more important than all the others, and that is Tasmania itself … and I’m really pleased that the Tasmanian elements of this story have been presented so sympathetically and so insightfully.
‘This is a story that I think would be relevant to people across the nation and across the world, particularly those who are working on social and environmental justice issues and who want to see how that’s been done in the past … but it really only makes sense in the Tasmanian context, so as I said, I’m glad that it’s been presented sympathetically in that context.
‘It’s Tasmania speaking to the world – the play is Tasmania speaking to the world. And if it had those Tasmanian elements played down or removed it wouldn’t be as compelling as it is, not only for local audiences but for national and international audiences as well,’ said Croome.
All movements towards justice are based in place – in a particular place and a particular time, Croome continued.
‘There are universal messages but how a particular time and a particular place shape a justice movement is crucial to understanding that movement. And when you take that movement out of its time and place it makes less sense; it is less relevant to people, less compelling. So I’m really glad that Campion made the decision to locate [the play] firmly in a particular time and place – and to emphasise those two things rather than push them to one side in order to be relevant to a broader audience,’ he said.
A UNIQUE COLLABORATION
The world premiere season of The Campaign is co-presented by the Tasmanian Theatre Company (TTC) and Blue Cow Theatre (whose Artistic Director, actor and director Robert Jarman, is also a member of the cast) in association with If Theatre and Salamanca Arts Centre.
It marks the first collaboration between the two Tasmanian theatre companies, and came about ‘in a curious and charmed way,’ Jarman told ArtsHub.
‘Charles Parkinson, the AD of TTC, and I were in a meeting and at the end Charlie said, “Robert, can I have a private word with you?” He said he hoped Blue Cow might be interested in collaborating on a project he had planned. He started to tell me about the project and after just a couple of minutes I interrupted and said, “Charlie, we are planning to do exactly the same thing!”
‘At that stage his project was called The Yellow Line, and ours was called Pink Thylacines. Both would be verbatim works, and both would go beyond a mere rehashing of the history to look to the present as well. So we already shared a vision for the project’s form and scope,’ Jarman said.
‘We negotiated some points. For example, I insisted that, as far as possible, all personnel involved should be queer. But really the collaboration was relatively easy because we were already running on parallel tracks. It was a matter of merging,’ he explained.
Read: Funding rejection dismays Tasmanian theatre sector
Charles Parkinson takes up the story, telling ArtsHub: ‘This collaboration came about because both companies wanted to make a piece of theatre about the momentous events and human rights struggle that led to the decriminalising of homosexuality in Tasmania. It made no sense for both companies to stretch their limited resources in competition with each other.’
All collaborations are a juggling act, with this co-production between TTC and Blue Cow being no different.
Asked if he had advice for other companies who might be considering a future co-production, Parkinson said: ‘I think it is fair to say that some aspects of the collaboration have been easier than others. My advice for anyone entering a collaboration of this kind would be to be very clear from the start about who is responsible for what and to have detailed written agreements.’
THE IMPORTANCE OF REMEMBERING
Jarman agrees with Campion Decent’s earlier suggestion that the writing and staging of a production like The Campaign is important if the story of Tasmania’s struggle for LGBTI rights is to be remembered.
‘Obviously the project is immensely important as a vehicle for telling this extraordinary story – a story that, because it took place on this little island at the bottom of Australia, is easily overlooked and risks being forgotten, yet which had concrete implications nationally and internationally,’ he said.
‘As a retelling of a history of change, the play is interesting and useful, but I think the real value of this story (and of this particular retelling of the story) is as an examination of how change happens, what is needed to effect lasting change, deep change, change at a fundamental level in society.’
Parkinson agreed. ‘I think the creation of this piece of theatre and the publishing of the script is an important piece of the historical jigsaw around this shameful part of Tasmania’s history. The detail and accuracy of the script of The Campaign means that even people who are quite familiar with the events and the history are learning new information from seeing the play.’
It’s a point echoed by Rodney Croome, who said that despite having lived through the events the play describes, he is still learning more – an experience others will doubtless share.
‘When I talk to young LGBTI people in Tasmania, they have – even if they were born after the events described – they have some awareness of those events because their parents did,’ Croome said.
‘This was a debate that all of Tasmania was swept up into. No-one could avoid it. It was everywhere, all the time. So their parents have recollections of these events and their kids will have absorbed those and have those second-hand memories. But going to this play will I’m sure fill in many of the gaps that they have and they’ll be able to see just exactly what was going on.’
‘This was a debate that all of Tasmania was swept up into. No-one could avoid it. It was everywhere…’
But it’s not just young people who stand to benefit from the play’s documentary nature, Croome continued.
‘I’ve spoken to people who were actually there at the time, who have been to the play and even some of the people who were interviewed by Campion and Matt, whose memory of events had faded, and all of these memories have come flooding back – about what it was like going to those awful rallies on the North-West Coast, of what it was like being arrested, of what it was like going to various meetings and addressing various community groups, whatever it might have been,’ he said.
‘And my hope is that the play not only instils in young people a sense of what things were like and also a hope for the future, and an impetus for them to become involved in change, but that it also inspires people to go further in terms of documenting the events.
‘In the last few days I’ve heard stories from people that I didn’t know about – from the Salamanca arrests to the later debate on gay law reform. They were involved in ways I didn’t know. They have stories to tell which are really fascinating and which I’d never heard before. So the play has brought all that back up to the surface, and I really hope that we can find a way to continue to document that – to expand on what Campion has done – and to have a fuller picture of what happened,’ Croome concluded.
The Campaign runs from 22 October – 3 November 2018 at Peacock Theatre, Salamanca Arts Centre, Hobart. Visit tastheatre.com/the-campaign/ for details.
