By MICHELLE HERBISON
NEW York actor Nilaja Sun started performing her solo stage-show No Child with its Australian theme in 2006 without ever expecting it to travel this far.
“In New York occasionally tourists would come up to me and say, ‘You have to do this show in Australia’ but I thought I’d never get the chance,” she recalled.
Years later, No Child is now on a VCE study list and Sun is performing it around the country.
The one-woman-show follows the story of a teaching artist who visits a school in New York’s South Bronx for six weeks to teach the play Our Country’s Good, about Australian convicts in 1788.
The featured school and its characters are a combination of Sun’s own experiences through her years of teaching in some of New York’s toughest schools.
Sun follows the “craziness” of the storyline through transition between 16 different characters over the course of the performance, from the teacher to students, parents, the janitor and the principal.
“There are only three chairs and me on stage. No props, no costume changes. Just me changing my soul every two seconds into different characters,” Sun laughed.
“It’s about the ups and downs of the work I do as a teaching artist, going into schools for six to eight weeks asking kids to see the parallels of their lives and the lives of the characters in the play, then rehearsing it and performing it to the community.”
Sun said she hoped the show would help audiences appreciate the work of all teachers.
“I really want the audience to understand what it feels like for a teacher who has 30 kids talking to her at the same time. It’s important to quickly go from character to character to character in a breakneck speed in order to get that sense,” she explained.
Despite No Child’s fame and success, Sun said she remained committed to helping those in unfortunate circumstances.
“Part of our duty as artists is not just to hang out in the private schools but to spread the wealth,” she said.
Nilaja Sun will perform No Child at Geelong Performing Arts Centre’s drama theatre at 1pm and 7pm on 31 May.
