Still from THE WEEKEND. A woman looks poised to run. In the background the outline of a red door shape glows in the darkness.Lara has only the week­end to track down her part­ner as she tra­vers­es the world of pub­lic hous­ing, drug deal­ing, and addic­tion.

The Week­end is based on a sit­u­a­tion that first time play­wright that Hen­ri­et­ta Baird (from Kuku Yalanji/Yidinji coun­try in Queensland’s Far North) expe­ri­enced. From this she’s writ­ten an extreme­ly fun­ny, emo­tion­al­ly hor­ri­fy­ing one-woman show. Per­former Shaki­ra Clan­ton plays mul­ti­ple char­ac­ters as we fol­low Lara on her epic jour­ney.

She per­forms on a stark set (by Kevin O’Brien). There is a large rec­tan­gle of grey indus­tri­al car­pet that looks like cre­ate sparks if Clan­ton wore shoes. A three pan­el screen of fun­house mir­rors dis­torts her reflec­tion when she dances or walks in front of it. Around the edges of the pan­el are led lights which change colour to bril­liant­ly rep­re­sent dif­fer­ent set­tings. (Light­ing design Karen Nor­ris.) A plas­tic bread tray sits at one side.

The play starts with Clan­ton danc­ing. Her move­ments are sure and strong. I see aspects of gath­er­ing, direc­tion. Ener­gy is cre­at­ed then sent through clap­ping. The the­atre stills. The sound­scape is rhyth­mic with a tap­ping sound bal­anced by a hol­low drum beat. (Sound design by Nick Wales, Rhyan Clapham (aka Dob­by), Kevin O’Brien.) The lights fade to black and then we’re in to the sto­ry.  

I’m con­fused at first. Clan­ton as Lara is charm­ing. She bal­ances the out­ward­ly-calm per­sona with the ris­ing ten­sion on the inside. Her real­i­sa­tion of the Lara’s two boys is spars­er than I’d expect­ed. A head tilt, a slight change of voice. Her char­ac­ter­i­sa­tion of the oth­er women is much stronger. Phys­i­cal­ly and vocal­ly they are quite dif­fer­ent to Lara. Lat­er in the play I get it. The men aren’t at the cen­tre of this sto­ry. The men leave, or are left. It is the women are active in this world.  They are informed by their past and the rela­tion­ship they have with these men but the sis­ter­hood (good and bad) is who takes action. These are women who have been trau­ma­tised but who have locked that trau­ma away in order to func­tion. It leaks out in self-destruc­tive behav­iours, but they are cop­ing the best way they know how. There is a ter­ri­ble sense that they believe this is what they deserve. Direc­tor Liza-Mare Syron has skil­ful­ly paced the evo­lu­tion of the char­ac­ters with the rev­e­la­tion in the script. 

A myth­ic tale of search­ing and self dis­cov­ery. Recog­nis­ably First Peo­ple’s work, it’s heart­break­ing and redemp­tive. 

Con­tent warn­ing: descrip­tions of intra­venous drug use, strong lan­guage.