The Cake Man set to find new audience

Modern indigenous theatre began with the first production by an Aboriginal playwright in the inner Sydney suburb of Redfern in 1975.

At least that is the popular view of Robert Merritt's The Cake Man, written from his prison cell at Bathurst, drawing on his own experiences to create an absurdist view of white paternalism and mission life.

It was the first play written by an Aboriginal about Aboriginal family experiences, and the first directed and performed by Aboriginal and white actors.

Merritt was allowed to see opening night under police guard and must have taken satisfaction from the fact that The Cake Man was well received. His script was turned into an ABC television film in 1978, and received the occasional revival.

But the play has since largely been forgotten or figures only in our cultural history for its role in bringing indigenous theatre into the mainstream.

Now WA's Yirra Yaakin Theatre Company is bringing the play back to life with a production to be performed at the State Theatre Centre, followed by a season at the Belvoir Theatre in Sydney.

The Cake Man tells the story of Sweet William, his wife Ruby and their child Pumpkinhead as they negotiate the perils of life on a mission in NSW around Cowra.

The family have grown up on the mission and are looking to a future life in the city, where they will not have to deal with mission inspectors, managers and priests.

"Their aim is to get to Redfern," Yirra Yaakin artistic director Kyle Morrison explains.

Morrison was not even born when the play had its premiere for the newly formed National Black Theatre in 1975 with a cast that included Justine Saunders, Zac Martin and Max Cullen under the direction of the theatre company's founder, Bob Maza.

Morrison says he comes to the play with fresh eyes and a desire to take up the challenge of reworking what has become a classic of black theatre.

"It's a play that is very much of its era in the 1970s but the issues it raised then are still very much with us," Morrison says. "Despite the progress that has been made since then, there are issues that remain unresolved. So it's still very relevant."

One of those issues - that nagged at Merritt - was the paternalism of the mission-based approach to Aboriginal life and culture.

Merritt's sense of theatre offered an absurdist approach to the paternalism of preachers and mission inspectors, with the main character Sweet William making his points in monologues at various parts of the play.

"The Cake Man is the promise of love by Jesus," Morrison says. "William is trying to work out what is this world we are moving towards. There is the mission mentality in which the white man is trying to give you cakes and goodies but there is also the realisation that this kind of paternalism has to stop."

Morrison says The Cake Man was groundbreaking because it showed Aboriginal people from their own perspective. "Before then the aesthetic of the noble savage ruled any white perspective on Aboriginal life but now there was an Aboriginal telling his story in his own way."

In many ways The Cake Man laid the foundations for future Aboriginal writing, such as the plays of Jack Davis, Kevin Gilbert and Kath Walker.

Among the Yirra Yaakin cast is George Shevtsov, who performed in the second production of The Cake Man in Sydney in 1976.

"I remember being driven home across Sydney from rehearsal one night by Merritt, who was a very gentle but determined man," Shevtsov says.

Merritt never wrote another play but he did make documentary films in the 1980s, and was the first Aboriginal member of the Australia Council. He died in 2011.