Summer Series 4 - Noel Tovey "Little Black Bastard"

Sunday, 22 January 2006 - 9.30 pm AEST
Presenter: Karen Dorante

Join Karen Dorante with the best of Speaking Out in 2005. This week she speaks to actor, director, dancer, choreographer and writer Noel Tovey about his autobiographical play "Little Black Bastard".

In his fifty-odd year career in the arts, Aboriginal director, Noel Tovey has done everything from being principal dancer with Sadler's Wells to directing the Indigenous welcoming ceremony at the Sydney Olympics.

It's amazing really when you consider Tovey's childhood in Victoria during the 1940s and 50s. He was street kid from the slums of Carlton who survived racism, poverty, neglect and sexual abuse to become a successful artist here and abroad.

Noel Tovey tells his harrowing childhood in his one-man stage show, Little Black Bastard, and he told me one of the reasons he relives those painful memories is to stop this from happening to other children - black or white.

He presented his stage show recently at Australia's largest regional arts festival, the Castlemaine State Festival in Victoria.

Transcript of Interview with Noel Tovey

Noel Tovey: I do it because for two reasons. One I don't want any other Indigenous child and for that matter any white child to ever go through what I went through. The second reason I do it if anyone thinks that their life is totally hopeless once they hear mine they think well if that old fella could get out of the shit so can I.

Karen Dorante: Victoria is the state where most of those painful memories lie in your childhood and as a young adult. How do you feel when you go back to that state because I assume you've been back there many times?

Noel Tovey: At first I couldn't come back because of the ghosts of the past. Once I'd written the play and you know I've also written my autobiography which is the same title that was cathartic. Once I got it all out there I found it easier to come back and now I feel quite at home here really.

Karen Dorante: You mentioned your autobiography I read somewhere that you laboured over every word in the book. Was it a similar process for the stage play?

Noel Tovey: Yes it was actually. What I did was I started the book and I read a little of it to my cousin who is also a writer and she said to me you should sit on stage and tell this story because a lot of people will find it very difficult to believe and so that's when I developed the play. And once I'd finished the play I went back to the book. It took, the process, took about three years. But I could only write for a short time and then I'd have to give it up. For instance I had a lot of difficulty getting my papers from the Victorian government. In fact at one point I threatened to take them to the High Court to get them. I think mainly because I think they thought I would sue them which I suppose I could but I'm too old to do that now anyway because they knew that the man they gave my sister and I to had been in jail for two years on seven different charges. In the area we were taken to he was known as a I suppose the word is pedophile because mothers warned their children to stay away from him. And no-one wanted to give me the official papers relating to this and still in fact I still don't have some of them. They've been buried forever as it were.

Karen Dorante: You still keen to get a hold of them?

Noel Tovey: Well only to see for myself. I mean other papers refer to them but I would yeah I would one particular paper from the police station at Burrang Junction when this man tried to legally adopt us and the police up there wrote to the Welfare Department saying that he wasn't a fit father. Instead of taking us away then my sister and I were there for five years and he systematically raped both of us. Everyday. And that's one of the reasons I actually wrote the book I talk about this really in depth in the play as well.

Karen Dorante: That must be confronting for anyone really.

Noel Tovey: Well it is and what I do is I won't be able to do it in Castlemaine but when I did it in Sydney and Melbourne I gave performances for street kids and their carers and various other young disturbed people and when I finished the play I'd sit on stage and say you've heard my story now you can ask me any question you like but I want to hear your story. Each night it would develop into a 2-hour therapy session and I had many many young people tell me the reason that they'd run away from home was that they'd been abused and the drunks and all those things I went through. So that was beneficial for me and they were the performances I enjoyed most because I knew what I way saying was reaching the ears that I wanted it to.

Karen Dorante: You've played other roles in your life and in fact didn't really acknowledge your Aboriginal side because you were seen as exotic when you were working abroad and so passed as Greek and Italian. How does it feel playing yourself?

Noel Tovey: Sometimes it feels quite strange playing myself I have to say that because it's always easier to play somebody else on stage. And as for you know I went in denial about my Aboriginal heritage for about thirty years because I was made to feel ashamed of it when I was a little boy that's why the book and the play is called Little Black Bastard. Some of the earliest memories I have of hearing people saying get those little black bastards out of here and playing myself and telling the story is really difficult and that was the main hurdle in the beginning was that I had to tell myself I'd been an actor for fifty years as well and that I had to find that happy medium between telling the truth and getting it across a stage performance.

Karen Dorante: And was it at Pentridge when you finally accepted your Aboriginal identity or was it well after that?

Noel Tovey: Well I what happened in Pentridge was I tried to commit suicide and I heard the voices of my ancestors and that was a really profound Indigenous experience for me I heard all these voices say "don't do it"; "hang on bub there's a better life for you out there in the world and one day you'll find it" and I believed them and I still do actually I still hear my ancestors sometimes and I think they've guided me ever since that day.

Karen Dorante: And in fact they called you home?

Noel Tovey: Yeah they did absolutely. I had an operation to remove some growth in the upper part of my head and my doctor in London said look you know you have to think about the future seriously and he said why don't you go home to Australia and recuperate and I was sitting on the beach one morning and from out of nowhere there came a whirly whirly wind and it kicked sand up in my face and in that moment I heard the voices again saying it's time to come home. And then when I came home of course I saw a lot of the things that I went through as a child was still happening and I was actually going to retire but I didn't and so I set up the performing arts course at the Aboriginal college in Redfern, Eurora. I directed some really good Indigenous productions among them I did a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Karen Dorante: With an all-Indigenous cast.

Noel Tovey: Yes for the first of the Olympic festivals.

Karen Dorante: I wonder what Shakespeare would have made of that?

Noel Tovey: Oh he would have loved it because as one of the critics said and this was really the best review it had I'm sure Shakespeare wrote it for these people.

Karen Dorante: That's a great compliment isn't it.

Noel Tovey: Yeah

Karen Dorante: Do you still work with Eurora?

Noel Tovey: Ah not at Eurora but since then I've done I did a production of State of Shock with Patricia Morton Thomas if you saw Radiance she played the older sister May well I taught her at Eurora. I've directed a production of Ray Kelly's play Somewhere in the Darkness which I was also in originally I played the grandfather then I did a production called The Aboriginal Protesters which was such a success in Sydney that the German government put up $1 million to take the entire cast for the Bimar Festival for four performances.

Karen Dorante: There's a real love for Indigenous overseas isn't there.

Noel Tovey: Oh absolutely. More and more people realise many years Indigenous Australians A. didn't have a voice because they weren't allowed to use it. But now that they are allowed to use it people are listening.

Karen Dorante: Certainly abroad, what about here in Australia? What have you found I mean is the Indigenous voice particularly in the performing arts something that Australian audiences want to hear?

Noel Tovey: Yes and no. Yes if it's really a good production and if it really for instance my friend Wesley Enoch just did a production musical called Sapphires which has been a huge success.

Karen Dorante: Oh yes I've heard its brilliant.

Noel Tovey: Brilliant and a wonderful cast.

Karen Dorante: And a wonderful story as well.

Noel Tovey: And a wonderful story and Deborah Mailman whose worked for me and Rachel Maza who's also worked for me they're wonderful. So the more I now find a lot of Australian audiences are opening their eyes and seeing Indigenous performers really for the first time and saying God we never realized.
And I say to most people well they were never given the opportunity. There's big big steps major steps particularly in the performing arts happening now and there's more openings you see for young Indigenous actors or young Indigenous students.
The performing arts saved my life I have to say and so I encourage you people that got any talent at all to get an education and then go to a or try to get into the better drama schools. All the major drama schools like NIDA or WAPA in Western Australia, the VCA in Melbourne they all have Indigenous students now that means that there's going to be another generation of really good Indigenous actors and musicians come through.

Karen Dorante: You're with Speaking Out on ABC Local Radio and throughout the Asia Pacific on Radio Australia. I'm Karen Dorante and I'm speaking to Aboriginal director, author and actor Noel Tovey. No was also part of your answer too Noel, why no?

Noel Tovey: Well no because for all the talk of reconciliation I still feel lot of racism out there and I think it's always going to be there. What I hope for is you know peaceful co-existence like eveyone being allowed to be themselves and live side by side. I get it all the time but in really in coveted ways for instance when I was doing a Midsummer Night's Dream I was interviewed by a young reporter who said to me; "Will the be able to understand the language?" I said watch my lips very carefully, what language am I speaking to you in? So I do I oh people say to me oh but you know you don't look Aboriginal you're dark but your don't look Aboriginal, how much Aboriginal blood do you have. I say well enough to be beaten up and taken away from my family. So I get all those sort of questions.

Karen Dorante: Is there still that factor I mean one of the reasons why you were such as success overseas was because you were exotic-looking. Is that sort of attitude here in Australia?

Noel Tovey: Yes and no. I say yes and no again because yes Aboriginals are now being and Islander people in fact a friend of mine has just written a friend for SBS and two wonderful parts for an Islander woman and her son and they started rehearsing day before yesterday as a matter of fact. So people are interested in the exotic side of Indigenous culture as well. For me when I went overseas of course I didn't look like anybody else and so I got to play a whole lot of roles Italians, Greeks whatever but yeah it helped me considerably. Took me a long time to realise that but it actually did. And on the other side my family of course I have on my mother's side I'm Aboriginal, my great grandmother was Margaret Carmody from South Australia and on my father's side my great grandfather was an African slave and they were, my grandfather and his brother were famous musicians I didn't actually know about until I started doing the family research for my book.

Karen Dorante: So your great grandmother was Margaret Carmody?

Noel Tovey: Yes

Karen Dorante: Whose mob did she belong to?

Noel Tovey: She Ngarrindjeri?

Karen Dorante: Ngarrandjeri

Noel Tovey: Yeah

Karen Dorante: So that makes you an Ngarrindjeri too?

Noel Tovey: Yeah?

Karen Dorante: And have you been back to your country?

Noel Tovey: Oh yes I have in fact I've been back several times yeah.

Karen Dorante: What was the first time like?

Noel Tovey. Well the first time was the first time strangely enough I felt truly at home. People have asked me to explain that what I meant by that I took my shoes off and went for a walk in the bush and I felt that this is where I belong. I have a strong belief in our culture and have strong belief in what I've inherited. They're the positive things, they've been the positive things that have actually kept me going for so long.

Karen Dorante: We were talking earlier about your work at Euora College. It must excite you the breadth of talent that we have in the performing arts. Deborah Mailman for example she's made that successful crossover to mainstream with The Secret Life of Us and Aaron Pederson to some degree too. That must excite you seeing Indigenous performers come up through the ranks and most of them getting their start off with Indigenous theatre companies as well?

Noel Tovey: Yes you know we must never lose sight of the people who were there at the beginning like my good friend Bob Maza and Justine Saunders and Kevin Smith and they're out there pushing the black theatre of Redfern and they're opening the doors. People were trying to keep them closed but they insisted on opening them and people like Aaron whose done, I think Aaron is a wonderful role model for any young man who wants to become an actor and they same as Deborah, Deborah's worked for me and Usula Yovich who has an extraordinary singing voice and will be a big star. And there are other people that who've worked for me who are equally as good Tony Briggs, Gary Cooper there's at least now when I want to cast a play there's a wider pool for me to select from and that's really good and the same goes for people making films or television there are a lot more actors out there now.

Karen Dorante: Have you still got a lot of stories in you that you want to tell before you decide to as they say hang up the boots?

Noel Tovey: Well yes I have actually and also what I did last year was the Flying Fruit Fly Circus wrote a part for me, Con Colleano who I actually saw perform when I was much younger and I played him in a wonderful production called Skipping On Stars and the kids were so amazing in what they did and the way they did their school work at the same time. I set up scholarship in my name last year and its basically to help two children, one Indigenous one non-indigenous who come from socially disadvantaged backgrounds to be able to go to the Flying Fruit Fly Circus
to the school and also at the same time learn performance arts.

Karen Dorante: It's a wonderful gesture anyway.

Noel Tovey: Well I wanted to pay back you know how we have this great belief that you know I'm now 71 and I have a great belief that I was saved from the streets and jail and all that running amok that I did when I was a kid to do the work that I've now done by as I said earlier by my anscestors and so I just feel happy that I can do something like this. I wanted to help kids, that's my main thrust now, that's helping kids.

Karen Dorante: We talked about the trailblazers like Bob Maza, Justine Saunders, Kevin Smith and of course they were starting out in Indigenous theatre in the time when the black voice was just starting to grow and now I think its probably even needed more than ever particularly if we look at what's happening with Indigenous Affairs at the moment. Would you agree?

Noel Tovey: Oh absolutely you know I think I long for the day when we have really strong Indigenous politicans out there who can actually speak up for Indigenous Australians as a whole. In fact I think under this government alot of of Indigenous issues have gone backwards so the voices from the people have to be stronger.

Karen Dorante: And that's where you see the performing arts coming in to play here?

Noel Tovey: I see the performing arts coming in to play because in the early days you see the early Indigenous plays like the Cherry Pickers by Kevin Gilbert they were also political and one can use the stage as a political voice that why I encourage more and more writing and more and more acting you know that's the place to really take it out and say it how it is.

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This page last updated Monday, February 20, 2006