State Theatre Company South Australia / Queensland Theatre. Odeon Theatre. 30 July 2025

 

Dear Son is a magnificent example of storytelling craft intersecting with theatre. It’s a witty, richly playful and deeply compelling work adapted from the book Dear Son: Letters and Reflections from First Nations fathers and Sons by Thomas Mayo, co-author of The Voice to Parliament Handbook.

 

Director Isaac Drandic and co-adaptor John Harvey have fashioned a remarkably sophisticated production managing to successfully offer a work at once hilarious as its underlying intent is extremely serious. Speaking of contemporary issues faced by indigenous men and problems they face as fathers and sons. Encompassing with extraordinary ease and deft flair the impact 200 years of negative colonial attitudes crushing positive cultural forces thousands of years old have had and are having on them.

 

There is much magic created from simple choices made. Backbone to the production’s structure is a group of indigenous men meeting at an outdoor BBQ club to chat and talk issues. From this foundation, story after story segues with complete ease. That, in partnership with Designer Kevin O’Briens’s lovely basic shed roof, sand floor with wood tables and benches, Lighting Designer David Walter’s faultless feeling for mood and tone, allied with Craig Wilkinson’s video design and William Hughes sound design, you get an experience that’s at once familiar – do we not always consider the stories of sons and fathers – yet distinctly very, very different.

 

Drandic’s cast are a fantastic ensemble, very into playing it up as they are handling pretty intense stories. Not easy having your wife and kids move out on you. Losing a beloved Uncle when you arrive too late (yet this sad tale is easily one of the funniest stories in the telling,) managing a mixed married.

 

The real power in this cast’s work is an infallible ability in giving deep expression to the love, admiration and hope of sons to their fathers, of fathers to their sons. In words they could not say face to face. Words wrapped in the wonder, mystery and celebration of culture; animal totems and land in much the same way western culture does, with a different emphasis and form.

 

Bravo Jimi Bani, Waangenga Blanco, Kirk Page, Aaron Pedersen, and Tibian Wyles. They accomplish something extraordinary with a humble simplicity to be admired.

 

David O’Brien

 

When: 26 Jul to 16 Aug

Where: Odeon Theatre

Bookings: statetheatrecompany.com.au