Signs of Life Read online

  Contents

  Setting & Characters

  SCENE 1

  SCENE 2

  SCENE 3

  SCENE 4

  SCENE 5

  SCENE 6

  SCENE 7

  SCENE 8

  SCENE 9

  SCENE 10

  SCENE 11

  Production Notes

  A Word from the Director

  The Sound Design Process

  The Set & Costume Design Process

  Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD)

  The History & Origins of Pole-Sitting

  Echoes of Dirt Music

  Photography Credits

  SETTING

  An isolated farmhouse in a parched olive grove beside a dead and empty river in the not-so-distant future, when drought seems to have become permanent, even apocalyptic.

  A tree, the yard, the veranda. A red kite pinned to the wall.

  CHARACTERS

  GEORGIE An Australian woman in late middle age, an orchardist recently widowed

  BENDER An Aboriginal man in his thirties, a shooter and itinerant labourer

  MONA Bender’s sister, an Aboriginal woman in her forties, an invalid pensioner

  LU Georgie’s dead husband, a former fisherman and horticulturalist

  From left: Bender (Tom E. Lewis), Mona (Pauline Whyman), Georgie (Helen Morse), Lu (George Shevtsov)

  SCENE 1

  Darkness. The sound of crickets. In the gloom, an unlit farmhouse becomes dimly visible. An owl hoots abjectly. Barely perceptible, GEORGIE appears on the veranda. She wears a man’s cotton robe, boxer shorts and a singlet. There’s an unlit torch in her hand. She peers out into the darkness, listening keenly, as if to the owl itself.

  GEORGIE: You used to say how funny it was – the idea of it. Me. The restless traveller. Coming to live out here. In the middle of nowhere. Amongst the olive trees. With you.

  After a few moments the distant noise of a vehicle on a highway; the sound slowly intensifies as it gets closer, until eventually the motor itself is audible. The sound becomes ominous, ever closer. Then the engine falters, sputters and fades to nothing. Crickets reclaim the night for a long moment and then a starter motor begins to natter – once, twice, three times. sound of a car door creaking open and a bird taking flight from the tree. The sound of the car hood being slammed shut, and then a man’s bellow of rage.

  BENDER: (off) Shit!

  MONA: Go orn!

  BENDER: Shut up.

  MONA: I’ll do it if you don’t!

  GEORGIE takes up a piece of a tree limb from where it stands by the veranda rail.

  BENDER: (off) No bloody way! You stay in the car.

  GEORGIE holds the stick at her side, a weapon. A woman (MONA) begins to sob and keen faintly out there in the dark. GEORGIE hefts the stick with a little more conviction, her apprehension increasing with every passing moment.

  BENDER: (off) Fuck!

  GEORGIE: There’s a shotgun in the laundry. Box of shells in the linen press. But you said it yourself: step out with a firearm and feel a bad scene get worse in a hurry. A car door slams and she flinches. Sounds so sensible. When your heart’s not thumping like a dog in a box.

  The sound of breaking glass.

  BENDER: (off) Yeah, that’s right; that’ll help. Ya stupid bitch.

  GEORGIE: C’mon, people, start it up. Keep going, just go.

  MONA: (off, screaming) Please!

  BENDER: Lemme alone.

  MONA: Please, please!

  Footfalls approach. Closer. And then an ominous silence. Until only crickets are audible. Terrified, GEORGIE turns, as if she’s decided to get the shotgun after all, but before she breaks away:

  BENDER: (obscured, very close) Hullo?

  GEORGIE gasps, snaps on the torch and BENDER is caught in the beam. He looks rough, as if he’s been sleeping out.

  GEORGIE: Jesus.

  BENDER: Nah, different fulla.

  GEORGIE: Car trouble?

  BENDER: Amongst other things. Couldn’t lend us a can of petrol, I spose?

  GEORGIE: Everything runs on diesel here.

  BENDER: Everythin?

  GEORGIE: ’Cept the house. That’s wind and solar.

  BENDER: Don’t spose you got a windpower lawnmower? Solar chainsaw? No petrol at all?

  GEORGIE weighs this up as BENDER suffers in the torchlight.

  GEORGIE: Where’s your vehicle?

  BENDER: Just out past your gate.

  GEORGIE: How many people?

  BENDER: Two.

  GEORGIE: I heard crying.

  BENDER: Me sister.

  GEORGIE: Where you from?

  BENDER: Hard to say.

  GEORGIE: Where have you driven from? Today.

  BENDER: Today? Just the bridge up there, coupla mile. Yesterdy, Wubin, New Norcia, Mogumber.

  GEORGIE: And where’re you headed?

  BENDER: Yeah, well there’s a question.

  GEORGIE: Seemed simple enough.

  BENDER: Family business. Never simple.

  GEORGIE: True.

  BENDER steps tentatively into the light spilling from the house and is humanized a little. GEORGIE switches off the torch.

  BENDER: Didn’t mean to scare ya.

  GEORGIE: Oh, I’m not scared.

  BENDER: (noting the club) See you’re armed.

  GEORGIE: You don’t know the half of it.

  BENDER: How bout I come back in the mornin?

  GEORGIE: Back?

  BENDER: When it’s . . . in the mornin.

  GEORGIE: But you said you needed petrol.

  BENDER: True.

  GEORGIE: So you’ll, what, sleep in the car?

  BENDER: Wouldn’t be the first time.

  GEORGIE: With your sister?

  BENDER: We’re not perverts.

  Sound of a car door creaking open.

  GEORGIE: What kind of car?

  BENDER: Holden. Wouldn’t see me in a Ford.

  MONA: (off, but closer, and still distressed) Bender!

  GEORGIE: What’s happening? What’s she doing? Why’s she crying? What’ve you done to her?

  BENDER: (turning to leave) Jesus. I’ll come back tomorrow.

  MONA: (off) Boy? Boy?

  A gust of wind comes out of the dark.

  SCENE 2

  The veranda the next day. BENDER and MONA sit at the table, silent and expressionless. Behind them, a red kite is pinned to the wall. After a long silence, GEORGIE enters with a tray containing sugar, milk and mugs. She sets it down. MONA reaches for the sugar, adds one, two, three spoonfuls to her mug. And then BENDER takes four – hesitates – and makes it five. Another awkward silence.

  BENDER: (tilts his head toward the interior of house) Lot of books in there.

  GEORGIE: Yes.

  BENDER: You a teacher, then?

  GEORGIE: No. They’re my husband’s.

  BENDER: He’s a teacher, then?

  GEORGIE: No.

  BENDER: It’s just a lotta books. If ya not a teacher.

  BENDER: This your husband’s place, then?

  GEORGIE: Yes.

  Pause.

  GEORGIE: Your car.

  BENDER: HT. With the 186.

  GEORGIE: We’ll get it going in a minute. (an awkward pause) By the look of it you’ve been travelling a while. (only silence) Lot of red dust. (another long, fruitless pause) You Noongar people or Yamatji?

  BENDER: That car’s been all over.

  GEORGIE: I saw the red dirt. Wondered if you were from up north, like, like Martu people, but —

  BENDER: Not dark enough? That what you thinkin?

  GEORGIE: No! It’s just the plates on the car. Meekatharra —

  BENDER: They was on it when I bought it.

  GEORGI
E: So . . . you’re from there?

  BENDER: Nup. Not really. What are you, anyway, some kinda Aborigine spotter?

  GEORGIE: Pardon?

  BENDER: Bit of an expert?

  GEORGIE: No.

  BENDER: Like some people with birds and stuff. Lookin for special markins.

  GEORGIE: I’m sorry, I —

  BENDER: I’m a tired, dusty, fed-up blackfulla, that’s what kind I am.

  GEORGIE: I didn’t mean . . . It’s just . . . well, I haven’t seen anyone for a while. I’m out of practice.

  A long, uncomfortable pause ensues.

  BENDER: That river come up onto this place?

  GEORGIE instinctively looks out toward the dead river.

  GEORGIE: Well, used to. Ran the whole length of the property.

  MONA: Property. Properly. Property.

  BENDER: Moore River.

  GEORGIE: Poor, dead thing. Makes a big bend as it passes. Well, did until a few years ago. Now it’s just dry sand, mostly. But you can see where it was. Like the outline of a dinosaur. A skeleton. I go out some evenings and look at it, try to imagine it alive again.

  MONA: This the one, Bub. This the place.

  BENDER is affected by what his sister has said. MONA gets up and stares out into the distance. She feels something, a presence.

  BENDER: (looking at the kite) You got kids?

  GEORGIE: I was a wicked stepmother once.

  BENDER: What?

  GEORGIE: But, no, no children of my own. You?

  BENDER’s not really listening; he’s trying to figure out why there’s a kite on this woman’s wall.

  BENDER: Hm?

  GEORGIE: Do you have children?

  He shakes his head.

  BENDER: Was an uncle once.

  GEORGIE: Oh?

  BENDER: Felt good.

  LU appears, watching on with interest from within the olive tree. MONA begins to weep.

  GEORGIE: Something wrong? Is she alright?

  BENDER: Right as she’ll ever be.

  GEORGIE begins to go to MONA.

  BENDER: Leave it. Please.

  MONA continues to weep as the light fades and wattlebirds and cockatoos overtake the night and a gust of wind rolls through. Suddenly MONA is startled, galvanized by something unseen, something that seems to have passed by.

  MONA: Boy? Bobby?

  BENDER: (irritated) What are ya doin?

  MONA: (confused, then sly) Somethin. Nothin.

  MONA peers out anxiously, longingly.

  GEORGIE: Nothing out there anymore, nothing alive. Except for a few wild dogs.

  BENDER: Dingoes?

  GEORGIE: No, just feral dogs. Starving. Not even any roadkill now.

  BENDER: They’ll turn on each other. In the end.

  GEORGIE: Like humans, no doubt.

  BENDER: And when the last one’s left it’ll eat its own shit, ’fore it dies.

  GEORGIE: How do you know?

  BENDER: Seen it plenty times. Happens more’n more now.

  GEORGIE: Whole country’s —

  BENDER: Dyin.

  GEORGIE: Wasting away, like . . . a body consuming itself, fat, muscle . . . tendon.

  BENDER: Just hangin on.

  GEORGIE: Barely. Only a few birds now.

  BENDER: No rain, nothin breedin.

  GEORGIE: Even the aquifers are drying up. See the stress in the trees, like they’re growing old before your eyes.

  BENDER: Still, must be somethin here, keep a few dogs goin.

  GEORGIE: There’s a bore. The windmill. But it’s gasping.

  BENDER: Suckin the dregs.

  GEORGIE: The dogs come around after dark, when it’s safe. Drink from the old cattle trough. I should fence it off, cover it. But then I think about the honeyeaters and wattlebirds, the cockies and the peewees.

  BENDER: Need to shoot em.

  GEORGIE: The birds?

  BENDER: Nah, them dogs.

  GEORGIE: No.

  BENDER: Why not?

  GEORGIE: I can’t.

  BENDER: Ya must have a shotty. Saw a box of shells.

  GEORGIE: What?

  BENDER: Four-ten. Number four shot Bismuth. Good ammo.

  GEORGIE: And where’d you find that?

  BENDER: Cupboard with the sheets. Saw a gittar, too.

  MONA turns their way and mimes drawing a bead on BENDER and shoots.

  MONA: Shooter.

  GEORGIE: (disturbed) Sorry?

  MONA: He’s a shooter.

  GEORGIE: Oh. Like, a roo shooter?

  BENDER: Well, more of a dogger.

  MONA lets off an unnerving cat-like yowl.

  BENDER: Stop it!

  MONA gets up and walks away from them, stands alone, tormented by something in her head, like a swarm of bees.

  BENDER: Last job I did was all cats. Wildlife mob. Up the peninsula. Special program. They’re breedin woylies and boodies and little rare wallaby, you know, lost fullas?

  GEORGIE: Extinct?

  BENDER: Thass right. They got this big electric fence.

  GEORGIE: Lucky them.

  BENDER: Keeps out foxes and cats. Foxes you can bait from the air.

  GEORGIE: Ten-eighty.

  BENDER: But bloody cats, you gotta trap the buggers. Kill everythin, cats. Lizards, birds, turtle, everythin.

  GEORGIE: So, what . . . you’re clearing out feral cats inside the —

  BENDER: Sanctuary.

  GEORGIE: So the marsupials can breed?

  BENDER: Correct. Like an island.

  GEORGIE: Sanctuary.

  BENDER: Good job, decent pay. Make their own drinkin water from the sea. Nice people, science fullas; well, nice enough. But a good feelin, ya know? Takin rubbish out, puttin proper animals back. Like bringin back life to country. You know what I mean?

  GEORGIE: Yes. I think so. But if it doesn’t rain again —

  BENDER: Then we all buggered. It’s over.

  GEORGIE: Hard to imagine. Everything finished, actually over.

  BENDER: Don’t even bloody wanna think about it.

  GEORGIE: Isn’t there a bird, some sacred bird that heralds the coming of the rain?

  BENDER: Where’d you read that, in ya big Aborigine book?

  GEORGIE: Well, isn’t there?

  BENDER: No idea. But you can lend me the book and I’ll study up. I can stand on one leg, if it helps.

  GEORGIE regards him a moment, as if seeing him differently. MONA sits absently, abjectly completely alone at so short a distance.

  GEORGIE: You like it. Bringing life back to country.

  BENDER: True.

  GEORGIE: Seems a strange way to bring life, though, doesn’t it? Trapping, shooting, killing.

  BENDER: Well. It’s not pretty.

  GEORGIE: I couldn’t do it.

  BENDER: Good. I could do without the competition.

  GEORGIE: I suppose I’m too soft.

  BENDER: Or just sentimental.

  GEORGIE: There’s a difference?

  BENDER: Soft is when you let yourself feel. That’s good. You need that. Sentimental, but? That’s when ya only let yourself feel, and you stop thinkin. That’s when people’re dangerous.

  GEORGIE: And it doesn’t bother you, all the killing?

  BENDER: Killed things all me life. To eat. For money. Old man, he told me, orright to feel sad. Even a bream, you pull him from a creek and then you think, Poor thing, and then you eat him. Cats, but? Killin them murderin bastards? Never felt a thing.

  GEORGIE: So, the job —

  BENDER: Had to leave early. Family business.

  MONA is suddenly alert.

  MONA: Bobby!

  MONA exits, searching.

  BENDER: Mona, git here! Break ya bloody leg out there. King browns everywhere.

  GEORGIE: I haven’t seen a snake for a year.

  MONA: Bobby?

  BENDER: Don’t make me come out there’n git ya! Bloody sick of it. (angry, menacing) You heard me. Mona!

  MONA shuffle
s back, steps up onto the veranda, seems a little disoriented, then fixes on BENDER, pointing slyly at him, drilling into him in a way that unnerves him.

  MONA: Kill anythin, my little brother. Anythin what moves. But he can’t make somethin come alive. Not one thing!

  In the fraught silence that ensues, MONA goes inside. BENDER collects the tea tray. A door slams indoors.

  BENDER: Listen. Thanks for the petrol – and everythin.

  GEORGIE: You’re welcome.

  BENDER: But that carbie’s not right.

  GEORGIE: Let’s have a look at it.

  BENDER: Bit hard now, in the dark. And Mona, she’s —

  GEORGIE: I’m sure she’s as keen to get on the road as you are.

  BENDER: Keen, orright, that’s her. (bitterly) Keen as bloody mustard.

  GEORGIE: So —

  Something crashes inside the house.

  MONA: Bastard!

  BENDER: So we’ll get it right in the mornin.

  BENDER goes indoors. GEORGIE sits in bewilderment.

  BENDER: (off) Christ, you’re a waste of skin!

  MONA: (off) Get fucked, you.

  BENDER: Fuckin sick of ya.

  GEORGIE steps away in increasing apprehension. From within the tree LU watches.

  GEORGIE: I can’t do this. I’ve taken them in, fed them, given precious fuel, done everything decent, but all I want is for him to take the parcel of food I’ve made up, put that poor, wretched woman into his clapped-out station wagon and bump on down the drive. Is that so terrible? It’s too much, too sudden – visitors, conversation, strangers – and I’ve got my own decisions to make. You know that, you understand that, don’t you? I should have gone by now. Nothing to stay for. But I’m tired. Dry as a leaf. I just want to be in bed, sink into the pillow that still smells of you, look at your boots there, licked by moonlight. Sleep. And dream it’s all okay, that everything is still what it was.

  Inside the house MONA and BENDER shuffle about opening cupboards and doors, trying to get a station on the radio, skidding back chairs, murmuring, bitching.

  BENDER: (off) What’re you lookin at me like that for?

  MONA: (off) Weak, you.

  BENDER: (off) Bugger off.

  MONA: (off) Weak.

  BENDER: (off) Shut up or I swear, woman, I’ll take you straight back.

  MONA: (off) Woulden dare!

  BENDER: (off) Just try me.

  GEORGIE: I’m safe, Lu. Aren’t I?

  MONA: (off) Here. This the place. This the story.

  BENDER: (off) Just shut up. Please.