Nilja Sun tells us at the beginning of her stunning one-woman show No Child, ”'take the train from 59th Street Manhattan to the Bronx and in only 18 minutes you'll have travelled from the richest congressional district in the country to the poorest.” Sun, a writer and performer, takes us inside New York's crisis-ridden public school system by looking at her own experiences as a 'teaching artist' working with high school students in the Bronx. Sun has the task of directing the students in Our Country's Good – a play about convicts putting on a play in a newly-settled Australia. We gradually see the parallels between the violent lives of the convicts and the environment these kids are brought up in. They are surrounded by gang violence; many are subjected to abuse; most have absent parents. Sun is a joyfully physical performer and transforms between all 16 characters in the blink of an eye: the elderly janitor, the driven principal, the enervated teaching staff, and the sassy but vulnerable students. No Chilld… is a powerful and always entertaining start to the Melbourne Festival. Sun holds a deep compassion for her subjects. Almost the entire audience of the Fairfax Studio gave Sun a standing ovation for her remarkable performance and beautifully written work.
Running at the Arts Centre Fairfax Studio until Sunday 14 October
