Sandra Thibodeaux’s The Age of Bones is an ambitious, playfully political Indonesian-Australian coproduction now being hosted by La Mama in Carlton.  For a play that extols (and some might say preaches) the virtues of working together across national and natural borders, it’s very pleasing to see how the production itself has exemplified this cultural harmony at every stage of its development. It also comes to Melbourne as part of the Asia-Pacific Triennial of Performing Arts festival, which, for some of the younger audiences of La Mama, might be delivering them their first taste of surtitled theatre, except for maybe opera.

This will certainly be a very gentle introduction for them. About half of Thibodeaux’s dialogue is performed in Indonesian, while the other half is performed, unsurprisingly, in English. It also makes magnificent use of puppetry and projections as a backdrop to this story of a 15-year-old boy, Ikan (Imam Setia Hagi) who is lost at sea. Lost because that is the last place that his mother, Ibu (Imas Sobariah) and his father, Bapak (Budi Laksana) knew that he was going. Ibu doesn’t know if he is lying dead at the bottom of the ocean, or in the belly of a whale, like Jonah. Fortunately, he’s very much alive, and hasn’t been swallowed by a literal whale, although a “metaphorical whale” is a different story. Like so many Indonesian boys of his age, Ikan went to work on a fishing boat carrying refugees headed for Australia. In his community there is simply no other way to feed his family, although they hardly knew he would be risking incarceration.

Ikan’s story is told as a fantastical, deep-sea satire, with the whale apparently representing an oppressive bureaucratic system, while a host of other underwater characters have much clearer allegorical allusions. Even though a lot of the conflict takes place in the depths in the ocean, the political symbolism is very much on the surface, intentionally and endearingly obvious. It is narrated, in English, by two of its most comedic characters, the Old Man (Deri Efwanto) and his young friend, Dalang the puppeteer (Mohammad Gandi Maulana). Dalang delights in spicing up the story with dramatic Indonesian shadow puppetry (walang), which Maulana is certainly very skilled at. Meanwhile, the Old Man, who does most of the talking, is a very charming anchor to this wild tale, even if some audience members might struggle to understand his accent.

The pair of them watch and commentate as Ikan is picked up by a pair of “divers,” who are about as helpful (or unhelpful rather) as the ones in Finding Nemo. They imprison him at the bottom of the ocean for two long years. He shares a cell with a hammerhead shark (Kadek Hobman) a hilarious Aussie bloke stereotype, who has great comic chemistry with Ikan. A much less effective stereotype is the white saviour, Ikan’s lawyer (Ella Watson-Russell) who succeeds in getting him released, but not without sounding incredibly self-righteous. Given she appears as a white pointer shark, directors Alex Galeazzi and Iswadi Pratama were probably aware of the cliché, but don’t really do anything subversive or entertaining with her.

The Age of Bones’ beautiful sailing ship set design by Dann Barber, dazzling oceanic projections and impressive puppetry are so entrancing that whenever the dialogue and performances are less than spectacular, it’s very easy to get distracted from the actual plot. Fortunately though, this is a genuinely moving story, told in a way that, despite its faults, still pointedly reveals just a few of the many things we need to reconsider about how we do things in Australia.

Written by Christian Tsoutsouvas

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