Booleroo

Cafe Locked Out

On a shy dirt road, thin and overgrown, below the towering and humming forest of turbines, I came across the old house, constructed out of bricks moulded from the hard earth, which was now reclaiming its walls. There was graffiti on some of the last remaining plaster, and the ceiling and roof had become the floor, allowing you to look up at the sky, which seemed to be using its weight to help the earth erase this house.

After World War One, the government gave parcels of this land to soldiers returning from the trenches. I even came across the ruins of a school, which a fading plaque called the “School of the Future.” They must have come out here in their Model T-Fords or carts, thinking that the war was behind them, but these ruins speak of another war, and the ruins are all that remain.

I tried to capture this with my phone, but that part of the view that left you reverently quiet, as you explored the few rooms, was beyond the lens to capture. But my soul could capture it. This was why I’d asked to take our little truck to the next town alone. I was missing my kids, even though they were young adults now. And I missed the theatre, the thrill of watching the audience turn up, as the actors, in the change rooms, were psyching themselves up.

On nothing but pure determination, Rohana and I had not only set up the theatre company, the Wolves, but we’d been doing so well that we were living off it. Touring our plays town to town, we’d even been invited to perform for the army, whose head psychologist had declared that our play Marooned was a revolution in suicide prevention. They told me they’d tried every program the government had offered, and none of it had worked. Now they were going to try theatre, a new Australian play. We even got invited to Canberra, where our actors performed for the Chief of Army and all these other VIPs, and we wowed them.

Afterwards, we were standing there before the most powerful soldier, and he told us the only decision they had to make now was whether watching the play for their enlisted personnel would be voluntary or mandatory. Mandatory—the first time that word had really reached me. I remember thinking, if they decide on mandatory, then potentially we would become millionaires.

Back in Melbourne, our newest play, the comedy Adrifting, was wowing audiences, and other great things were happening too. Our dream of living as contemporary artists had been realized, and better still, our plays were helping people. This to us was theatre heaven.

And then Covid arrived and they closed all the theatres. Our hopes that it was only a speed bump were dashed when the first lockdown ended and we commenced our first funded tour of our play The Magnolia Tree. Around this time, yet another play, The Shadows and The Hues, was earmarked for serious funding. Suddenly, despite Covid, we were in serious talks with the acclaimed director Bruce Beresford, who was quoted as saying he read scripts all the time, and that this was the best thing he’d read in years. He went on to say the play was the equivalent of a Pinter play, except it was a brand-new voice.

I remember resting my hand on his wrist, which confused him, to which I added, “You’re Bruce Beresford.” I said this because I was not used to this much good luck. But then a moment later, a voice in my head said, “Enjoy the view, Michael. This is as high as you’ll go.”

A short time later, the government decreed that theatres would be segregated. Only the vaccinated would be allowed in. On all the theatre pages, everyone was celebrating this. I remember a major theatre director posting how relieved he was because he could think of nothing worse than sitting next to a filthy antivaxxer.

Meanwhile, those who liked my work were urging me to stay silent. “Don’t throw it all away,” I was told. “You could be heading to New York.” But instead, with Rohana’s blessing, I posted a live video in which I declared that segregation was a cancer of the culture’s soul, and our theatre company, the Wolves, would not participate.

And so we were cancelled. And so now I was here, standing in the ruins of someone’s dream house. Someone who was long gone.

Back in the truck, with Wendy and Kret following in Wendy’s Winnebago, I wound my way through the gorge to a town called Boolaroo. Port Augusta was next, and then after a few more side roads, we’d be on the Nullarbor heading to the Western Australia border, which we were not allowed to cross because we were unvaccinated. Which was also the reason we were going. Us, three members of the Freedom Movement that had popped up organically all over the country. And most of us with this strange sensation that we knew we were on the right path, even though we didn’t know where we were going.

And then I was here.

At first glance, Boolaroo was a quiet, wide, and empty street, with a few shops and government buildings lining each side. The only building with any character was the bakery, which was why we were here. We’d heard that the owners had refused to participate in the Covid mandates. There had been no pushing of QR codes, and mask-wearing hadn’t been and wasn’t being enforced.

Taking in its isolation, you’d wonder why the authorities would bother pushing their mandates out here, but they had. One of the owners told us that they’d repeatedly sent police up from Adelaide to try and intimidate them into compliance. It hadn’t worked, which was why we were here.

We’d decided to try to shoot a short documentary, and in the bakery, we were setting up the cameras when the shop filled with people. So I whispered to the owner that I’d wait until she’d served her customers, when she laughed and said, “They aren’t here for me. They’re here for you.”

Most towns we had stopped at, we had let them know we were coming, but because this town had been so remote, we hadn’t bothered. But apart from a few, these people weren’t local. They were medical refugees fleeing the mandates of Melbourne and Adelaide. They were out here trying to find places to hide or a job they could apply for as an unvaccinated person. Few of these existed.

That said, I wasn’t an entertainer; I was an apprentice recorder of stories. It had started in Melbourne, in the great marches, and then crystallized in Canberra in the Epic gathering. All these people arriving from all over Australia, their vehicles packed with camping gear, and their faces flush with hope. With no mainstream media asking them who they were and why they’d come, I started asking them, for it was clear that each of them had chosen to play a passionate, active part in history.

And that passion was not infectious, but it was healing. And since most of us were losing our careers, our friends, our families, and some of us, our houses, and what many of us thought were our dreams, this passion was a mercy. And since my amputation from theatre had been healing me, I knew I had to keep going.

And that’s what all these people were here to do; they’d driven from all around to have their stories recorded. And so that’s what we did.

We set up our cameras, our microphones, and allowed as many of these people to speak as possible. I was compelled to, for they were all from my new tribe. These beautifully brave Australians, who had risked or sacrificed everything they held dear, to defend something that pre-Covid, we had taken for granted.

That night, in the caravan park, I posted the interviews, then come morning, Kret, Wendy, and I packed up and moved on.

Michael

mid 2022