Don’t Take Your Love to Town

Overview

Don’t Take your Love to Town is one of the simplest shows of the year, and one of the most powerful. Leah Purcell and Eamon Flack have adapted Ruby Langford-Ginibi’s book by the same title into a one woman show, with guitar accompaniment, written by Nardi Simpson.

They have whittled the book down to a kind of poetry interwoven with music. Purcell guides us through the difficult and colourful life of Ruby: a smart, funny Aboriginal woman who gave up the chance of going to teachers college in order to support her family. The story that follows is one of determination, tragedy and good humour. She describes her life at one point as the no-man’s land between mainstream white culture and traditional Aboriginal life. The audience sighed collectively when she explained how she gave up working with Charles Perkins at the Aboriginal Progress Association because her then partner told her she should be at home looking after the children.

She was clearly an admirable woman and Purcell dignifies her life with humour, charm and gravity. Purcell has a beautiful singing voice and the soulful, old-time duets between her and Simpson give the play a sense of time as it travels through the decades up to 2011.

Seeing theatre planed down to its most basic form is incredibly gratifying. It’s a bold undertaking on the part of Purcell, as she commands the space at downstairs Belvoir with nothing more than a little basic lighting, a guitar and a few paintings she places on the walls. I like German-inspired hipster theatre as much as the next person, but no amount of fluorescence, nudity and chinos can beat a moving story told candidly. Much like Steve Rodgers’ Food, that was also at downstairs Belvoir, this show opts for warmth and generosity over intellectual cool.

On the evening that I saw the show, Purcell and Simpson were met with a standing ovation. The performance wasn’t schmick, it wasn’t perfect – there were a few times she forgot a line and had to be prompted and at one point she told a gentleman on his phone that it was “really annoying”, but the standing ovation was fitting – this is moving, honest theatre at its rawest.

Photo of Nardi Simpson & Leah Purcell by Brett Boardman.