Kill The Messenger
Kill The Messenger by Nakkiah Lui
Belvoir
Kill the Messenger is a big unfinished play that asks why we persist in bingeing on stories of Indigenous suffering but changing nothing. Lui invites the audience to join her on another path. One that insists on the value of laughter, inclusivity and action.
Its genesis came from a true story about a man in Nakkiah’s home suburb of Mount Druitt. One day, in unbearable pain due to undiagnosed stomach cancer, he went to the local hospital, where he was refused care. Then he went to a nearby park and hung himself. While writing this story Nakkiah’s grandmother fell through the unmended floor of her public housing home and died. Nakkiah found herself at the centre of a story about institutionalised racism.
The resulting play lays it all out, Nakkiah’s relationship with her white parter, a dead man’s second chance, and a granddaughter’s sense of duty.
Reviews
“Kill the Messenger is an extraordinary play in so many ways: poignant and hilarious, it's uniquely Australian and uniquely Lui.”
“This is a compelling, taut, provocative piece of theatre. The decision to cast playwright Lui in the role of her own textual avatar was brilliant, and adds another layer to the piece's intense honesty. It is theatre filled with anger about not being listened to – and while, in some senses, our listening comes too late, I am glad we have the opportunity to listen now.”
“Fierce and often funny, Kill the Messenger swirls with complex currents of anger, indignation, shame and guilt and it is, Lui freely admits, unfinished…But the point is taken: endings suggest resolution and this story has a long way to go.”
Credits
Writer - Nakkiah Lui
Director - Anthea Williams
Set Designer - Ralph Myers
Costume Designer - Mel Page
Lighting Designer - Katie Sfetkidis
Composer - Kelly Ryall
Dramaturg - Jada Alberts
Photographer - Amanda James
Voice Coach - Alistair Toogood
Fight Director - Scott Witt
Stage Manager - Isabella Kerdijk
Assistant Stage Manager - Kirsty Walker
Stage Management Secondment - Kaytlin Petrarca
Rehearsal Room Observer - John McCallum
Cast
Matthew Backer
Katie Beckett
Nakkiah Lui
Sam O’Sullivan
Lasarus Ratuere
All images by Brett Broadman