Survival Tactics (Review)

Hip-Hop Theatre has well and truly established itself as a genre, with artists such as Def Jam’s Russell Simmons taking poetry slams and breakdancing to Broadway and marketing it to the US mainstream along with his own soft drinks, clothing and footwear. But it has also developed on a more fringe circuit, with an annual Hip-Hop Theatre festival taking place in New York, and theatre performances involving MCs, DJs breakers and graffiti writers in hybrid formations happening worldwide. The strong performative aspects of all the elements of hip-hop align it easily with live theatre, and increasingly plays by groups such as urban theatre Projects in Sydney are using hip-hop as a central component. Sydney MC, beatboxer and breakdancer Morganics, a former Neighbours actor and Australian Theatre for Young People performer, first staged a Hip-Hop play called The Bridge in Newtown in 1993 and directed the mammoth Sydney hip-hop spectacular Hip-Hopera at the Wharf Theatre in 1995. More recently his one-man show Crouching B Boy, Hidden Dreadlocks and his collaboration with Wire MC, Stereotypes, have played at the Opera House Studio and showcased aspects of his extensive work as a hip-hop facilitator and performer all over Australia with disadvantaged young people, in Aboriginal communities as well as drawing on his theatre and production experiece in countries such as Germany, the USA, Brazil and Africa.

Survival Tactics is his most expansive show yet, involving six graffiti writers (including Sydney female veteran Spice) a dramaturg (Chris Ryan from Melbourne) as well as screenprinting and clothing design (by Cyber Thief By Weave), while the six-member cast all play characters who engage in most of the four elements. Inspired by an expression frequently used by Wire MC, it is about life on the street, and the way disenfranchised young people survive the pitfalls of ice addiction, drug dealing, prison, inter-racial relationships, racist taunts, poverty and the obstacles of everyday life. Morganics directs proceedings and plays Fury MC, an ice-addicted rapper who is struggling to keep his act together; Tongan-Australian MC Sista Native is a black activist who runs a radio show and falls for a white community leader (Brisbane breakdancer Nick Power), while Melbourne-based Romanian-Maori DJ BBoy Jay – the real revelation of this show – plays a DJ with a two year old daughter who is selling drugs to support his family. Maya Jupiter plays Juliana, a Mexican-Australian woman who is uncertain about her relationship with Swerve (Wire MC), a young Aboriginal singer and guitar player who has just got out of prison and is particularly riled by the constant circumspection he draws from white passers-by. It’s not exactly Shakespeare, and most of the performers are not really actors, but they all share particular skills in hip-hop which provide a continual flow and energy which keeps the play progressing from one situation to the next and portrays a strong relevance to the lives of young Australians. Each character has a monologue which often segues into a deftly-constructed rap, and there are numerous physical set pieces which displays the breakdancing, graffiti and hip-hop outfits to good effect, with Jay being the principal DJ providing some thumping beats as well as some acrobatic moves. Survival Tactics succeeds in introducing hip-hop in a non-threatening way as an educational tool to many in the audience who had not previously been to a hip-hop gig. A giveaway mixtape features a number of hard-to-find tracks by Wire MC and Nick Power along with two of Morganics’ collaborations with Sista Native and a couple of tracks by Foreign Heights. A discussion with the audience after one performance filled in the background to the play’s gestation as well as discussing issues such as the ‘bad rap’ which hip-hop still gets from the media and politicians, and the way that the protagonists have continually had to defend their commitment to hip-hop against hostile critics. A successful combination of community theatre and hip-hop which will hopefully lead to further collaborations, and a greater acceptance of hip-hop in the non-corporate mainstream.