Mandela Mathia's one-man show tells the story of his youth in South Sudan and the refugee experience that brought him to Australia, about how those experiences have formed him and about how his experience as a South Sudanese refugee has been problematised by reactionary forces within Australia for their own political goals. It's an engaging story which Mathia tells alongside the musician Malin Sylla who drums and plays other instruments throughout - opening the show with a drum solo of power and rhythm, it binds the show together and makes what could be a personal travelogue into a rich aural experience.
Director Jessica Arthur ensures it's a strong visual experience too, with the help of a set design by Keerthi Subramanyam and a quite stunning lighting design from Kate Baldwin. Mathia uses pieces of luggage and small props from the luggage in telling the story, opening up a story that makes him more complicated than just a simple victim of outside circumstances, but also an active part of his own personal narrative. Mathia is an engaging teller of his own story - able to bring the various figures in his story to life, and very much taking us along the way of a deeeply complicated childhood without ever playing for sympathy or making things overly traumatic. It's a very friendly show, and richly deserves to be shared far and wide. If it tours near you, I recommend catching it.
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