#artist: ursula yovich

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Tracklist:

First Nation • Gadigal Land • Change The Date • Terror Australia • Desert Man, Desert Woman • Wind In My Head (Makarrata Version) • Uluru Statement From The Heart / Come On Down

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What I loved about ABC's Preppers

for ABC Everyday / By Molly Hunt

Escaping the fallout of a personal cataclysmic event, Charlie finds herself among a motley crew of doomsday preppers.(ABC TV: Noel McLaughlin)

Why do people prep? To detach from reality and plan for an uncertain end with an uncertain expiration date?

It's like an eventual opening of a mystery box, just less bombshell and more bomb shelter.

I guess a part of prepping is about security and being able to fend and take care of yourself when the time comes, even if the 'when' is as close and as far as the sun rises and sets.

Prepping is the subject of a new comedy series of the same name: Preppers. The show made me laugh. A lot! But it also made me understand the 'why' behind it all, all through a modern lens. Here are my top four moments.

First things first. What is Preppers?

Preppers is a six-part ABC comedy series with a stellar cast. Nakkiah Lui (co-creator and writer) plays the protagonist Charlie and she is joined by six peculiar preppers played by Jack Charles, Meyne Wyatt, Ursula Yovich, Aaron McGrath as well as non-Indigenous actors Chum Ehelepola and Eryn Jean Norvill.

In the first act, Charlie is saved from almost dying in her car, running away and passing out. She is then woken by a water spray to the face, finding herself in the camp Eden 2.

The characters she meets at Eden 2 aren't prepping because of their fears of a zombie outbreak or the coming of The Rapture — well, some are — but mostly because of disasters that have already happened. Floods, pandemic, genocide, and the Stolen Generation. We've already had a real apocalypse and Lui, with co-creator and writer Gabriel Dowrick, cleverly explores this through a modern-day lens on colonialism, patriarchy, false allyship and intergenerational trauma.

Four moments where the show gets it right

Microaggressions

In a flashback, we observe Charlie repeating positive affirmations to herself before she begins to host a morning show: Wake Up Australia.

All the while, she's continuously dealing with an excruciating amount of microaggressions. I had to pause a few times because it was frustratingly triggering; I actually got a nervous itch. So good job Lui and Dowrick on showing that. Some may think it's depicted as an exaggeration, but I differ; this is reality.

Charlie (played by Preppers creator and co-writer Nakkiah Lui). (ABC TV: Noel McLaughlin)

Allyship

Lui and Dowrick really show the dangers of an ignorant ally through Luke Arnold's character, Fig. He appears to be charming and wants to be a part of Eden 2 but he's all under false intentions to be seen as the good ally.

People like this, who don't have their hearts in it but want the status to 'save' and 'help' Indigenous people, are (pardon my blackness): DAWGS!

Fig, played by Luke Arnold, is not a character with the best of intentions.(ABC TV: Noel McLaughlin)

Community

Eden 2 doesn't work unless they all come together. The gang almost gets modern-day colonised by a new white preppers' camp run by Fig after getting kicked out.

Charlie stands up as a leader, empowering the gang to come back and come together, which they do all while tearing down the white preppers' camp, in an amazing angelic scene.

Crackup

The show deals with such complex issues that are portrayed and explained in such a way that it's lighthearted, funny and at times magical.

Each character is equally funny and strong, with lines that had me repeating them, like when Jack Charles' character Monty said: "Fair like a blackfella's bum".

So, should you watch this? Hell yeh! It is clever, witty and dialogue-driven with a focus on the Blak experience.

You might not care too much for prepping, but the relationship between the characters is dynamic, layered and unapologetic — just like the whole show itself and just like us Blackfellas are. No shame, multi-layered and funny ASF.

You can stream all episodes of Preppers now on ABC iview, or watch Wednesdays at 9pm on ABC TV.

Molly is a writer and artist based on Gadigal Country (Sydney).

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Adelaide Festival 2019 in review: A season of spectacle

This years Adelaide Festival program delivered a cracking assortment of theatre, opera and dance. The Adelaide Review highlights the best of the 2019 season. So, whats the best youve seen? was a constant question over the first two weeks of March. So much to choose from in the 2019 Adelaide Festival. Day by day, night by night, the answer could well change. To begin Mozarts The Magic Flute. Not just the flute, but the whole production by Barrie Kosky and Suzanne Andrade is magical. With animation by Paul Barritt, it is brave, tender and very funny. In this tribute to silent black and white film, the story is spelt out in large letters on the white wall that forms the backdrop, though colour is not missing. Human and animated characters appear together heroine Pamina is pursued by wolfish dogs; Papageno, seeking love, has a black cat. The Queen of the Night is a huge spider, her head the only human part. The singing and the ASOs playing under Hendrick Vestmann glorious. The Magic Flute (Photo: Tony Lewis) Shakthidharan (aka Shakthi) is an Australian interdisciplinary artist of Sri Lankan heritage and Tamil ancestry. His debut play, Counting and Cracking, 10 years in the making, spans four generations, moving between Sydney in 2004 and Colombo in 1957, 1977 and 1983. Sixteen convincing actors play 50 parts, and there are three musicians. The Sri Lankan crisis came in 1983 when the government banned Tamil, declaring Sinhala the only language. Civil war erupted, and in the play Rahda, the pregnant wife of Tamil Thirru, believing him dead, flees to Australia, where son Siddhartha is born. Calling himself Sid, at 21 he has problems working out his relationships between his Australianness and Sri Lankan heritage but is helped by his Yolngu girlfriend Lily from Arnhem Land who cheerfully says she has similar difficulties. The play ends joyfully, with the arrival of Thirru, who had been imprisoned, not killed. The cast of Counting and Cracking (Photo: Brett Boardman / Belvoir St Theatre) Counting and Cracking was just one play taking identity as a theme, which also underlies Ursula Yovichs powerful Man with the Iron Neck, about Aboriginal youth suicide. Yovich also plays, movingly, the central part of Rose, mother of twins Evelyn and Bear, a promising footballer. His best mate, Ash, is Evelyns boyfriend. The twins father committed suicide, hanging himself from the backyard gum-tree. Bear has been called a monkey a clear reference to the Adam Goodes affair and has other, deep, racial difficulties. He follows his father, and his family must cope with this double tragedy. The play is nevertheless often funny, and ends positively. The actors, all Indigenous, are natural, vigorous and totally believable. Satirical, brutish, hilarious and finally shocking, Belfast-born playwright David Irelands Ulster American brings Oscar-winning actor Jay Conway, with Irish roots, Northern Irish playwright Ruth Davenport and director Irish Robert Jack together to discuss the production of Ruths new play about Tommy, a Unionist. This mix begins civilly enough but soon becomes incendiary, with Ruth maintaining her identity is British, not Irish, and refusing to change a word of her script, Jay discovering with horror he will star in a play promoting the Protestant cause, and Leigh weakly trying to calm things down. He fails, and expletives abound as fury mounts and becomes violent. But audience laughter persists until the appalling end. Ulster American (Photo: Tony Lewis) Festival dance avoided politics. Instead, individuality was key. Meryl Tankard recreated her 1988 success Two Feet for superstar Natalia (Natasha) Osipova, former Bolshoi and current principal with the Royal Ballet. Based on Tankards student experiences and the career of renowned ballerina Olga Spessivtseva, who became obsessed with the role of Giselle, a peasant girl who went mad and died, and herself had a mental breakdown and died in care, the solo work received an often impassioned performance from Osipova, a great Giselle of today. An actor-dancer of superb expressiveness and immaculate technique, her rendition of parts of Giselle engendered hope she will return in the full ballet. At the other end of the scale, Tankard produced a new work, Zizanie, for Restless Dance Theatre, Adelaides company for performers with and without disability. A story about a grump who tries to stop kids having fun because he cant laugh but is eventually converted and joins in their games, it had a confident and endearing performance from the six-member cast. Michael Noble and Kathryn Evans in Zizanie (Photo: Regis Lansac) The first big dance event was Dresden Opera Ballets Carmen, with a heroine who can hardly see a man without enticing him, and a Don Jos whose jealousy mounts as he stands silently watching until it overcomes him; having passionately embraced her he draws a knife and kills her. Choreographer Johan Inger added a young boy as an observer, signifying the death of innocence, and dark figures of death and guilt. The dancing was generally excellent, the storys adaptation less successful. Hofesh Shechters appropriately named Grand Finale ended the Festival in a whirlwind of movement presenting a generally depressing, chaotic world, with occasional glimpses of light. Bodies were frequently dragged about or off the stage as if dead. The indefatigable dancers were phenomenal in their performance of the often relentlessly fast choreography, but Shecters world view is not a happy one. And thats just a selection from the best of the 2019 Festival. Ayaha Tsunak in Carmen (Photo: Jan Whalen) Revisit our complete 2019 Adelaide Festival coverage here Adelaide Festival March 1 17, 2019 adelaidefestival.com.au Header image: Natalia Osipova performs in Two Feet (Photo: Regis Lansac) Tags:adelaide festival 2019 https://www.adelaidereview.com.au/arts/performing-arts/adelaide-festival-2019-review/