Walking into Bille Brown Theatre for i am here there's a pervasive atmosphere of optimistic anticipation that is downright contagious. Also, punters are greeted by drummers, and it's a well-evidenced truism that theatre is always better when it starts with drums.
Co-produced by QTC, the Multicultural Development Association and Two Thumbs Up, i am here is devised by its performers – with help from a dramaturg – and tells the stories of six refugees as children and the circumstances that led them to Australia. These are personal versions of stories that are equal parts harrowing and hopeful and performed with openness, dignity and no small amount of skill.
Perhaps there is a change in the air, a widening of voices that are being given the time and space to be heard, but this is also a reminder that there's a huge amount of work to be done to make these narratives not merely representative a specific community but the general community as well. In any case i am here succeeds in demonstrating the potency of storytelling as a means of being heard and understood in turn.
Whilst there's a small temptation to lament the inadequacies of Australia's immigration policies and the almost strangling limitations on humanitarian efforts internationally, i am here is not an indictment but a celebration of opportunity, diversity and – at the risk of sentimentality – hope.
