Aftermath

Last Friday, I made my way to Malthouse Theatre to see Aftermath as part of the Melbourne Festival. I don't live far from the city but my short journey to Southbank was turned into an odyssey when the train stopped and we were told by the not very happy train driver that the train had gone down the wrong track – like the train itself was a crazy drunk that was out of the control of the driver, the signallers and the entire Metro train organisation.

So I'm running down St Kilda Road in shoes that are so cute but have an evil, blister-inducing soul and it's hot and I'm running late and I get there huffing and puffing and with sore feet just as the lights are going down and I'm stuck in between two sets of 'Toorak Women' or, for people not living in Melbourne, delete Toorak and insert name of the rich suburb in your town where ladies of a certain age wear a lot of light, flowing fabrics, gold jewellery and complain about the help.

So, there was all that.

But it didn't matter.

All of that was gone at Lights Up. Because what happened after that is the stuff that makes you jump up and down and feel glorious that there is such a thing as theatre in this messed up world we live in.

Aftermath is theatre at its most simple and therefore most powerful. It's the stories of ordinary people caught up in extraordinary circumstances and what they had to do to survive. Or, more importantly, what they had to lose in order to survive. These stories of Iraqi people and their war gives complexity and understanding to a war that has consistently failed to dig below the surface. Wars are about right and wrong, and which side you belong on. I dare you to see Aftermath and ever think like that again.