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Home > Drama > HSC Course > Australian Drama & Theatre (Core Study) > Topic 2: Contemporary Australian Theatre Practice > Contemporary Australian Theatre

Topic 2: Contemporary Australian Theatre Practice

A Beautiful Life

by Michael Futcher and Helen Howard

Overview of the online tutorial

The first part of this online tutorial gives you a synopsis of the play. It introduces some of the issues and techniques raised in the play, and gives you workshop activities to undertake to gain a deeper understanding of the dramatic meaning of A Beautiful Life. The second part of the tutorial gives a detailed analysis of the play which will help you to gain an understanding of why this is a uniquely Australian play and how the play, in performance, creates meaning for an audience.

Part 1

Synopsis of the play

A Beautiful Life explores the histories of refugees in our country; it is a haunting account of prejudice, injustice and brutality, tempered by a celebration of human kindness and hope. The play covers the period in Iran and Australia from 1982 to 1993 and interweaves the fictitious character of Hamid’s experiences in gaol in Iran where he is tortured and witnesses human rights abuses before making a dramatic escape to Australia. His arrest and subsequent trial follows a protest outside the Iranian Embassy in Canberra. Hamid and his family, their problems, their struggles as refugees, their lives as Australians, are not just an Australian dilemma but a global problem. The play is a personal story yet a universal story, it is a story of courage. Its title immediately makes us ask about the central character Hamid and asks the question ‘what is beautiful about the life of Hamid?’

Some issues raised in the play

• the brutality and torture used by some fundamentalist regimes
• Australia’s lack of awareness of what occurs in some other countries
• Australia’s attitude to refugees and migrants from non-english speaking backgrounds
• political lying and deceit
• diplomatic relations
• the pros and cons of our justice system
• how public events affect private lives (e.g. Hamid’s family and friends; Brendan and Stephanie; The Boltons).

Some techniques used in the play

• scenes within scenes that create rapid shifts in time and location; for example, Act Two, Scene Six
• the use of a prologue, flashback, mime, storytelling, humour, satire, doubling of characters, minimal use of props and costumes
• using fluent English to indicate when the Farsi language is spoken by the Iranian characters; using a Farsi accent and incorrect or simplistic grammar to indicate when English is spoken by the Iranian characters
• the role of Amir as a narrator and humorist. His character’s function is to move in and out of scenes playing different ages and to comment on the action
• juxtaposition of past and present; for example, Act Two, Scene Twelve, the court room scene
• symbolism: the rose as a symbol of peace and love and war and destruction
• shock tactics created through dramatic physicalisation; for example, Kamran’s attack on Ahmad, Act One, Scene One; the journalists as sharks, Act One, Scene Four.

Learning activities to help you understand the meaning of the play

You can explore these activities with your peers. If you have no one to study with try improvising them on your own and see how your imagination can create the other characters, in action, in these scenes.

• Act One, Scene One, page 3. Explore the physical action in slow motion, double time, a combination of timing, then explore Amir’s first verbal interaction with the audience juxtaposed with the physical action that has just happened behind him. Reflect on the choices made and write them down.
  
  
• Act One, Scene Thirteen and Fourteen, pages 46 and 47. Act these scenes out and stop at any time improvise a monologue of the thoughts that are in your chosen character’s mind at that particular moment. Reflect on the choices made and write them down.
  
  
• Act Two, Scene Seven, pages 83 and 84. Act this scene out and stop as many times as practicable to justify each character’s actions in this scene.
  • I am doing this because . . .
  • I am saying this because . . .
  • I feel this emotion because . . .
  Reflect on the choices made and write them down.
  
  
• Form a group of three or four, (or just play all the roles yourself). Spend five minutes recalling the main events of this play. Perform this summary to your peers and/or family in two minutes. Reflect on the choices made and write them down.

Key issues and techniques in the play

Character and change

Change operates at all levels of human experience and every moment in this play is about change, and it happens on any number of levels. For example, the character of Brendan changes his allegiances during the play; this comes about because of his internal change of beliefs and values.

Act One, Scenes One and Two establish the character of Brendan and his initial beliefs.

• Act One, Scene Two, pages 6 and 7. The audience is introduced to Brendan who has little time for people he considers are Muslim fanatics. Brendan in conversation with Stephanie says ‘A bunch of Muslim fanatics wrecking a building and ranting bloody slogans to Allah. Would you bail them?’
  
  
• Act One, Scene Three, page 8. Brendan is establishing his point of view that Hamid is not the innocent party. Brendan in conversation with Hamid, Jhila and Amir) says ‘. . . You’ve been charged with causing damage to international diplomatic property and personnel, and since the whole of Australia has seen it on television about twenty times since yesterday, I assume you’re not going to be pleading your innocence?’
  
  Brendan goes on a social, cultural and political journey throughout the play and his beliefs change. Below is some of the dialogue that indicates the internal changes for the character of Brendan:
  
  
• Act Two, Scene Five, page 80. Stephanie has found evidence that the Iranian Embassy may have concocted the allegations of theft. Brendan says in conversation with Stephanie ‘All right. Prove it to me’. (Change of mind)
  
  
• Act Two, Scene Six, page 83. After Brendan and Stephanie have visited the Iranian Embassy, Brendan says in conversation with Stephanie‘Ahmad’s not exactly a secret aggressor is he? Went off like a firecracker’. (Change of view)
  
  
• Act Two, Scene Eight, page 87. Brendan discusses with Stephanie his lack of understanding about the Embassy riots, he says ‘If Ahmad was a secret aggressor, why isn’t Hamid falling over himself to point the finger at him? He’s got to come clean about what he was doing with that bloody spanner. And what Kamran was up to.’ (Change of heart)
  
  
• Act Two, Scene Twelve, page 97. Courtroom scene where the audience realises that Brendan’s belief system is changing. Brendan says ‘Hamid has forged for himself a life like any Australian.’(Change of beliefs)
  
  ‘It’s not a life he takes for granted. It’s not a life he would jeopardise under any circumstances, especially through the planning of a criminal act.’(Change of beliefs)
  
  ‘It’s all too easy for us to lump in our Muslim defendant here, with the terrorist fanatics we all see on TV and abhor. He protested against what he perceived to be a terrorist act on a huge scale, the reported slaughter of fifteen hundred people who fought for the freedom of their homeland from tyranny – the same tyranny which promotes terrorism worldwide and which none of us can ignore if we write the “wrong” book, or if we simply travel by air.’ (Change of beliefs)

Developing a character for performance

Explore a character’s changes in the play (e.g. Hamid’s, Amir’s, Jhila’s or Kamran’s) both internally and externally through finding their objectives, obstacles and tactics for each given moment in a scene. Act out this dialogue exploring the tone, pacing and pitch of his/her voice, and how his/her body language changes over this period of time. Consider how this directly relates to the rubric and write down your response.

Part 2

Detailed analysis of the play

The words of Stephen Sewell, a dynamic Australian playwright encapsulate the ideas behind the contemporary Australian play A Beautiful Life.

A Beautiful Life by Michael Futcher and Helen Howard is an Australian play that speaks about the politics of life - and theatre is politics and politics are theatre. Politics means more than political governance, it means our culture, social and spiritual worlds. It means that theatre and this play embrace all of this and it does so through its words, its stories, its characters, its performance styles, techniques and conventions and the questions it poses to its audience. A Beautiful Life examines the different social, cultural and political practices for Australia refugees; it explores our different communities’ values and attitudes and it deals with human personality and human temperament. It explores conflict and what generated that conflict in our society. This play has a uniquely Australian voice. The major issue in this play is the often forgotten histories of refugees and its metaphoric title immediately makes us ask:

• what is beautiful about the life of Hamid
• what was beautiful
• what will be beautiful?

A Beautiful Life covers the period when 5000 Mojahedin freedom fighters were slaughtered by Iran’s governing regime. The play interweaves the experiences of the fictitious character of Hamid, his torture in gaol in Iran and witnessing of human rights abuses before making a dramatic escape to Australia; and his arrest and subsequent trial following a protest outside the Iranian Embassy in Canberra in 1992. Hamid and his family, their problems, their struggles as refugees, their lives as Australians are not just an Australia dilemma but a global problem. The play is a personal story yet a universal story; it is a story of courage.

The performance style of the play cuts forward and back in time. It uses light, sound and props sparingly but effectively to create these flash backs and forwards. These theatrical techniques give the audience important insights into contrasting cultures and societies contrasting systems of justice. The final scene of the play with its juxtaposition of the austere Tehran prison and the Canberra court bearing its emblem of justice and peace is powerful, heart wrenching, horrific and yet full of hope. Audiences seeing, watching Ahmad transform from the Iranian brutal guard actually hitting and whipping Hamid into the Australian Prosecutor is stunning, confronting theatre.

The playwrights said they wanted to depict the ‘epic human tale of a little man against forces much larger than himself, as well as highlight the Australian response to people who arrive in this country as refugees’ (Adamson, J. (2000). The émigré’s song. Sydney Morning Herald, Australia). They have attempted to do this as A Beautiful Life challenges its audience through:

• the issues the play presents
• the emotive nature of the narrative
• the structure of the plotline
• the performance styles the play uses.

The emotive nature of the central narrative is brought about because the play engages with us on many levels. On the personal level, as an audience member, we may wonder and ask as we watch the play:

• Why didn’t Hamid strike and kill Ahmad at the Embassy?
• Why does Hamid want to look after Kamran?
• Does our Government and justice system really behave in this way?
• Is it true that the political will of the Australian Government can wield its power against Hamid through the legal system so that an important trading partner may be appeased?

The answers to these questions towards the end of the play are sometimes clearly stated and at other times we have to think for ourselves and make up our own minds. For example, the last line of the play is given over to Hamid's thoughts and his summation of his life. He says ‘This is the happiest day of my life!’ Why?

The structure of the plotline means that there is a theatrical playfulness in many of the scenes. This may make us cry and then make us laugh and we can enjoy all of Hamid’s adventures. His recount of his rescue of the Australian family and his escape from Iran is humorously performed, and yet there is always that undercurrent of the threat of being caught. The play also has a great theatrical physicality about it, even if you have not seen it, this shines through the dialogue and the construction of some of the scenes. For example, Act One, Scene Thirteen is set in Iran - Hamid is running through the street, voices are coming out of the dark at him, there is the frightening energy of brutality, there are the voices that spur him on, there is a pause; a stillness when he presses the intercom, then there is the humiliation of being caught by the guards. This is juxtaposed by the quietness of the one line of dialogue in the next scene as we see Jhila and Amir softly laying out Dad’s clothes.

Another question to ask is why have the playwrights used Amir (the son) as the narrator instead of Hamid? As we explore the play in performance this is theatrically and emotionally answered for us. Amir is a boy, but he is almost a man. As a young Iranian boy he has assimilated into Australian society – he grows and develops throughout the play and so he can believably comment on the events in both countries. He predicts the action with his refugee/migrant eyes. He has a child’s love of his family, and he has a child’s innocence yet young man’s horror about the manoeuvrings of all the Government bodies involved. He could be any HSC drama student, if circumstances were different. The character of Amir has humour, he has compassion, and he has a burning desire to tell us a story about his Australian/Iranian family.

The performance styles, such as theatrical physicality, the integration of place, the time sequences, all engage us, the audience, so that the political and personal stories in this play have a heightened reality about them. As audience members we travel, in this heightened reality, with Hamid to his day in an Australian court where he exercises his right to speak. He has his victory to speak out even though there are consequences to his “beautiful life”.

The use of sound and dialogue in this play allows the characters to pursue their goals. The characters in A Beautiful Life, persuade, argue, threaten, seduce, and inspire. Indeed the characters’ dialogue is dramatic. It drives the play forward, for example the accents and use of Farsi language is used to create the electricity between two different cultures and build dramatic tension. Iranian music is used in the play to create a theatrical emphasis and/or to punctuate dialogue in a scene. The dialogue in the play is serious with a deep message, yet there are many words that have a wonderful sense of humour and celebration running through them.

A Beautiful Life makes us laugh, make us cry, attempts to make us understand and recognise ourselves in our country, beyond our borders and our own perceptions. It is through the transformative power of this play that we can question aspects of our society and our justice system.

Bibliography

Adamson, J. (2000). The emigree’s song. Australia: The Sydney Morning Herald.

Futcher, M. & Howard, H. (2000). A Beautiful Life. Australia: Currency Press.

Hallet, B. (2000). A brutal life, a plea for justice. Australia: The Sydney Morning Herald.

Lovesy, S. (2006). Contemporary Australian Theatre, JEDA, Vol.12 (1) pp25-28. [Note: earlier version of this article].

Sewell, S. (2004). Myth, Propaganda and Disaster in Nazi Germany and Contemporary America. Australia: Currency Press.