Hide The Dog | Nathan Maynard & Jamie McCaskill
Cremorne Theatre just felt extra special, warm, and fuzzy that night with families and friends basking in their togetherness wrapped gently by a mix of ambient lighting and pre-performance buzz. Along with the suspension of disbelief expected in theatre performances, there was a liveliness animated through excited chatter by the voices of children keen to experience something out of the ordinary.
‘Hide the Dog’ did not disappoint in its mesmerising telling of spirit stories predicated on an exploratory tale of a cross-cultural friendship between two young people who find themselves bound as well as conflicted by a quest to save the last Tasmanian tiger they unexpectedly encounter in the bush. The rich and tightly paced storyline was embodied with conviction by a cast whose energies were evidently invested in entertaining and educating. The presence of the Tasmanan tiger was particularly captivating as the performer captured the mysterious essence of the creature through her physicality and, ironically, feline grace.
Image credit: Pat Stevenson and Seán Dowling
An eclectic combination of powerful characters such as an especially flatulent God of Wind (Tāwhirmātea) in this instance, a warm and benevolent creation spirit (Muyini), and a couple of menacing but somewhat easy to manipulate child-eaters, Kaitamariki and Kuta Kini to name a few were enacted and interpreted with the right balance of respect and irreverence. It was refreshing to see that these deities and supernatural entities from the palawa and Māori canon of mythologies (a term I use with all due respect as I acknowledge that the origins of First Nations stories ought not to be easily reduced to narratives rooted in mere figments of imagination) were rendered in this fashion. The intentional treatment of these characters made them all the more endearing and relatable.
The deliberate use of toilet humour drew plenty of laughs from the younger members of the audience seated in my midst. The assortment of costumes donned by the various characters were shiny and eye-catching. Props which took shape in the form of a fire stick, a blue wren, and a canoe which drew design references from seafaring vessels such as the Māori waka and the palawa ninga were some examples of elements that added aesthetic and historical value to the production, enhancing the theatre-going experience of the attendees and sustaining their attention visually.
At its very core, the attempts on the part of the creative team to draw our attention to these symbols and expressions from the palawa kani and Māori languages were laudable efforts to initiate a public, and perhaps a personal, interest in the larger cultural mapping project of Aboriginal and Pacific Islander peoples. Even though I was initially mildly put off by the fact that I could not decipher the actual articulation of one too many unfamiliar words, much less make out their meanings, I learnt to quickly relax into the unknown. I began to imagine how more than special it might be to have access and appreciate a diverse lexicon in a multilingual landscape. ‘Could this be a possibility in the making for multicultural Australia?’ I wondered. Shouldn’t keeping and treating cultures strong and in high regard be our collective commitment and responsibility?
By virtue of its multi-layered storytelling premise, the play piqued my interest and spoke to me philosophically during some of its precious pauses. The title ‘Hide the Dog’ itself felt like both a riddle and metaphor to me, begging questions such as why and in what instances should one hide the dog. Questions whose fateful answers seemed to warn and remind me metaphorically that dominant forces such as residual stains of colonisation and (even casual) whitewashing can, on very real terms, corrode an intangible aspect of an ancient heritage through loss of a language and destroy an ecosystem resulting in extinction of flora and fauna indigenous to the land.
As a first generation immigrant mother endeavouring to teach her daughter to have pride in her ancestry and speak her language confidently, I cannot stress the primacy of plays such as ‘Hide the Dog’ being supported and presented on multiple platforms. This representation and exposure are so very necessary for our individual and shared identity-making. Underneath the light-hearted concoction of comedy and drama, ‘Hide the Dog’ holds power and so much promise in its ability to engage with people from all ages and potentially inspire thoughtful reflections from them too.
