Samuel Beckett Theatre

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The most arresting image of this production from Australia’s Ilbijerri Theatre Company comes at the start. A white-bearded man is hunched over a table while a video presents a younger version of him injecting heroin into his arm. We gradually see that the seated figure onstage is moulding a piece of pottery on a wheel, coaxing it into existence with his fingers.

Juxtapositions of creation and destruction formed the pattern of the life of Aboriginal actor and activist Uncle Jack Charles, until he conquered the addiction that had led to periods of imprisonment. In a blend of narration, documentary clips and live music, he tells his story.

Co-written with John Romeril, this piece arose from a television documentary about Charles that made an impact beyond his native Melbourne. His experience spoke for many from the Stolen Generation: the experiment in social engineering that separated indigenous Australians from their community and resettled them with white families.

After being taken from his unmarried mother as an infant in the 1940s, Charles grew up in an institution for orphan boys, where he was taught to love God and queen by the Salvation Army. Singing their marching songs and recalling those years, this nimble, warmly engaging performer is notably free of bitterness.

Reconnection with his roots led him to set up Australia’s first Aboriginal theatre company in the 1970s, although his acting career was interrupted by his prison sentences.

He uses official documents to summarise his criminal offences briefly, preferring to focus on how he managed to retain an inner freedom in incarceration.

As the auditorium becomes a courtroom, he advocates that, having served his time, his criminal record should be expunged, to enable him to live and work freely. While the earlier energy of the piece dissipates here, the impact remains of an artist and campaigner for justice, undiminished in dignity and spirit.