Dark Stars
Part 2 of 2: Two African-American performers travel to Australasia a century apart. Each comes face to face with the true cost, and questionable value, of their lust for fame.
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The Challenge
This whole show, and all the characters, are performed entirely by one man, Jonathan Council, in one of the most imaginative and charming solo performances you’ll ever see.
Previously on Dark Stars…
Sidney Poitier and Cher convince Jonathan Council that his best shot at becoming a star is to move from the US to Australia. 100 years earlier, Irving Sayles makes the same journey, and now he’s the biggest star of the Australasian music-hall stage.
Read Part 1 here… or crack into Part 2.
AUSTRALIA. 2000s.
NARRATOR I arrive in Sydney, 100 years after Irving Sayles begins to find his star getting too big for its old galaxy.
AUSTRALIA. 1900s.
IRVING Hicks. I just ran 100 yards in 10.5 Seconds. Then I played a game called cricket.
HICKS What’s cricket?
IRVING I still don’t know. But I’m man of the match.
HICKS All joking aside Irving, I’m confused. Here’s me thinking yous and mes a team, and there’s me reading a newspaper to find out you’re getting hitched to that white woman, miss Carter.
IRVING Yeah you do a fine line in confusion Hicks, remember that time you seen a basket full of coconuts and you says to me look there! You ever in your life see potatoes with whiskers before?
HICKS That I don’t recollect.
IRVING Or how’s about that time we was passing a plumbers’ shop and you sees a sign saying, ‘Cast Iron Sinks,’ and you says, ‘as if any darn fool didn’t know that.’
HICKS Joking aside Irving, what’s going on between us?
IRVING Well Hicks they say that love causes a great deal of blindness, but I tell you, my marriage has been a real eye opener. My eyes have been opened wide of late, yes sir. Do you think all these folks here come to see Hicks-Sawyers Minstrels? Cos I don’t. I believe They come to see Irving Sayles. That’s the bill far as Mr Rickard’s concerned.
HICKS Mr Rickards? From the Tivoli circuit? Irving he’s our competition.
IRVING Hicks, we came to the underside of the world to be everything we truly can be. If I stay with you, I’m just another minstrel. With Rickards I’m Irving Sayles. Far as he’s concerned I’m as good as a white man. He’s offering better pay and catchier numbers too.
HICKS What’s he got in mind for tunes?
IRVING He tells me ‘look at that audience.’ What do they look like?
HICKS Small and pasty.
IRVING And what do we look like?
HICKS Big and black.
IRVING That’s right, Rickards says I’m exotic. Says I should play off of it. We’re gonna have ‘em throwing their wives in the air.
VAUDEVILLE STUMP SPEECH, 1900s
IRVING OK, OK Australia, Mr Rickards, do I gots time for one more? One more. OK, one more and then I gots to go. A beautiful lady in the audience asked me before, “Irving do you have a wife.” Do I have a wife? Look at me. I’m a black man ain’t I? I have many wives. My favourite’s an aboriginal woman. She’s my favourite wife on account of her skin. I always had it in mind to marry a woman blacker’n me. A while back she took the whole tribe of us on a walkabout, had to cross the desert. Tell you what I never saw so much sand in my whole life. After a few days my ham sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs were a thing of the past and pangs of hunger were fast approaching. Finally, we realised that we’d gone so deep in we stood no chance of getting out. The crisis had arrived. So, it was resolved, that night, to sustain life, we would go back to being cannibals. That’s right, cannibals. So, we agreed to cast lots to decide who’d be eaten first and the first lot fell to my mother-in-law. I got a wing the wish bone and the neck. Mm, mmm, mmm. We relished the old lady very much indeed and it laid to rest the idea I had that she was a tough woman. I found her very tender, very tender indeed. It was the first time I was ever able to keep her down. The next day we dined out on cold mother-in-law. Well, we lived on mother-in-law for a week. That was something new. She’d been living on me for ten years. Tell me Australia, what’d you think of that?
NARRATOR I tell you what they thought of it, they loved it.
“His cheerful allusions to his colour and nationality tickle the collective funny bone of the audience.’ ‘The smile on his genuine dark face resembles the entrance to a coal-pit, it is so extensive,’ ‘Sayles walks the earth with the air of a coon who has a mortgage on the Universe.”
SYDNEY, 2000s
JONATHAN Good evening ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the centre of the universe, Sydney Australia. Tonight, we are proud to present Harlem’s most notable spoken word artist, let’s give it up for Mr Jonathan Council.
NARRATOR I pause. For a long time. It is my first public appearance in Australia. I am determined to set a mood of gravity, sincerity. I am not really Harlem’s most notable spoken word artist. I am not even from Harlem. But they don’t know that. Home is where I say it is. I am whoever I say I am.
JONATHAN performing his poem
Black I sat
And shrouded in blackness
My body all shivers
My heart waiting in between beats
For something unguessable
Black face, tragic mask
Intruding into a holy place of whites.
NARRATOR My show is called Kultural Refugee. That’s Kultural with a K. I am an outsider; they want me in. Like Irving Sayles all those years before, Australians take me to the bottom of their hearts
RUGBY PLAYER Gidday mate, you look a bit like the famous rugby player Wendall Sailor. You’re bald, you’re black. You wanna play some rugby with us?
NARRATOR Cool. My first experience of positive discrimination. A country rugby club, social grade. I play the wing. They throw me the ball. I run, I weave, no one’s able to catch me, no one’s able to block me. I score a touchdown. A try. A try? I don’t try. I succeed. I audition for everything in Sydney’s golden age of film.
JONATHAN Hello, my name is Jonathan Council, I’m thirty years old and I’m auditioning for the Matrix Reloaded to be shot right here in Sydney Australia.
He auditions
I believe it is my fate to be here.
It is my destiny.
This role holds for me the very meaning of my life.
Isn’t that worth fighting for?
Isn’t that worth dying for?
I get a call from my agent,
AGENT Jonathan, ya good bugger ya. Great news mate, you’ve got the part in the Matrix mate. You start next week.
NARRATOR I got the part, I got the part in the Matrix Reloaded. I got the part in a movie that grosses 750 million dollars at the worldwide box office. I am humble, I am enthusiastic, my face is finally coming out of the shadows and into the light.
He sings
I’m gonna live forever, I’m gonna learn how to fly.
AGENT Yip you’re gonna learn how to fly all right, cos they’re gonna give you all that specialised stunt training, in fact it’s gonna be pretty physical, so rest up is the advice I’ve heard, go take it easy somewhere nice. You’ll be paid lots so don’t spare the expense. Enjoy.
JONATHAN I have worked so hard and finally it has paid off. I’m going to New Zealand for a four-day weekend. I’ve never been to New Zealand before; I figure four days is just long enough to see the entire country and be thoroughly bored. Then I return home to eighteen months full time film work. Hello, Mr Australian Immigration officer. Here’s my passport.
IMMIGRATION Sorry mate, you can’t go back to Australia.
JONATHAN Excuse me?
IMMIGRATION You were on a visitor’s visa to Australia mate, and you overstayed your visit by one day. You can’t go back.
JONATHAN But, I have an apartment in Sydney, all my things are there.
IMMIGRATION Give me a compelling reason to let you back in.
JONATHAN A compelling reason? I mean my life is over there, my, my big break is over there, I’ve finally got my break, I’ve been waiting my whole life for this opportunity, and it’s finally arrived and all you have to do is stamp the passport.
IMMIGRATION Mate, your application has been rejected.
JONATHAN I have no money, a carry-on bag. I find myself back in Auckland. The woman at the information centre tells me that all the hotels are fully booked, but that her friend has a place on Waiheke, where I can stay until I resolve my visa issues.
Waiheke is an island north of Auckland. To get there, we have to take a boat.
JONATHAN A boat?
NARRATOR At this stage in rehearsals the writer Arthur Meek, tells me to assume the position of a slave on a boat from Africa to America.
I lie down on the floor like this.
Arthur says ‘Jonathan, I told you to assume a position why are you lying on the floor? Are you tired?’
This is the position, Arthur Meek, this is the position. Lying down, legs bound, brothers piled on brothers like the devil’s lasagne. Why has he asked me to do this?
Arthur Meek says it’s because he wants to compare the journey of captured slaves from Africa to the United States with my journey from Auckland to Waiheke.
That is just offensive. There is no comparison.
Jonathan turns on his side, hands bound
JONATHAN So Arthur tells me, just tell my story. When I travelled from Auckland to Waiheke I had no idea where I was going, or what to expect. It was a choppy journey. The island began rising out of the mist like something out of King Kong.
It was raining and raining and I had nothing. No possessions, no plans, nothing.
I felt a crushing sense of disappointment. I have suffered so much disappointment but this boat trip from Auckland to Waiheke in the mist and the rain, sailing away from all my hopes and dreams, this was the lowest point of my life. I have no control over my life.
SYDNEY THEATRE MAGAZINE INTERVIEW, 1900s
REPORTER Mr Irving Sayles, before we start, may I say on behalf of Sydney’s Theatre Magazine just say how proud we are that you are the first man of colour to grace the cover of our magazine?
IRVING
I’d be prouder to be called me the finest man of humour ever graced your cover.
REPORTER You just might be mate. Do you think it’s true that no white man can ever be as funny as a full-blooded coon?
Irving is uncomfortable.
IRVING Coon you say? That’s an old-fashioned word. Where’d you learn that?
REPORTER Why from your songs of course Mr Sayles, and your endman gags. I must say to watch you perform makes me wish I had lived in the United States during the golden days of the Old South. I imagine working on one of those plantations must have been a laugh a minute. Eating watermelons and joking with your fellow negroes. Do you miss plantation days?
IRVING I never lived on no plantation. I love Australia and I intend to remain here for the rest of my life.
REPORTER What do you think it is about Australia that encourages so many negro performers to stay here after their tour is over?
Irving is more uncomfortable. The real answer is ‘racism in America’.
IRVING It’s the audiences, and your fellow actors, and your employers. No employer ever treated me more generously than Mr Rickards.
REPORTER Now that he has passed away, will you remain on the Tivoli circuit?
IRVING A circuit’s a circuit. Tivoli, Dix Gaiety, The Brennan Fullers. Just different trains to the same station.
REPORTER Any chance of getting back with the old gang from Hicks-Sawyer?
IRVING Hicks-Sawyer went to pieces. I’m my own man now.
REPORTER What does the future hold for Irving Sayles?
IRVING I want the same as other folks. The freedom to be myself. That’s all...
STARS OVER WAIHEKE, 2000s
NARRATOR It’s been four days since I arrived on Waiheke, and I’m still in my room. I haven’t left. I can’t move. I want to be a star, but it’s not going to happen, I want to be everything that I can possibly be, but I don’t know where to begin. I don’t know which way is up, I don’t know which way is down, I don’t know what’s forwards or what’s back. I can’t move. Then at five o’clock one winter morning, my crazy landlady breaks down the door.
LANDLADY Sorry to disturb ya mate, I was just wondering, what’s this island called again?
NARRATOR This woman is clearly crazy.
JONATHAN What’s the name of this island? It’s called Waiheke, crazy landlady, Waiheke Island, and you’ve lived here for three hundred years, remember?
LANDLADY Oh Waiheke, that’s right. And what’s your name again?
JONATHAN My name is Jonathan Council. Look it up in the guestbook stead of breaking down my door.
LANDLADY Just flicking through the guestbook… Oh, right you are, there’s your name. Jonathan Council.
JONATHAN Anything else I can help you with?
LANDLADY Nah nah, you’ve cleared it up. This is Waiheke Island and you’re Jonathan Council. Good to know. I just got a bit confused cos the way you’re behaving I thought that this was Robben Island and that you were Nelson Mandela. So, seeing as it’s not, and you’re not, why don’t you get your moping arse out of bed and go enjoy yourself?
JONATHAN It’s five am, it’s pitch-black outside.
LANDLADY So take a flashlight!
She throws a flashlight at him. It hits him in the head.
NARRATOR I give up, I wanted to be a star, I wanted to be free to be all that I can be, but instead I’m gonna take a night walk up a hill, through the bush by myself, in the middle of bumfuck nowhere and probably fall over a cliff and die and get eaten by owls and no one will even notice that I’m gone. It’s a cloudless night, moon’s full, night owls hooting away, working up an appetite. Not a soul in the whole universe except me.
RAY Hey mate, can you turn off the freaking light?
JONATHAN Sorry, I didn’t see you there, I’m Jonathan Council, what’s your name?
RAY Ray.
JONATHAN What are you doing Ray?
RAY I was looking at the stars, till your bloody torch went straight down the barrel of me telescope and blinded me.
JONATHAN Hey I’m really sorry, can I help?
RAY Nah, just gotta wait for my eyes to adjust. You wanna geeze?
Jonathan puts his eye to the telescope
JONATHAN Man, where I’m from stars means celebrities, you know. I’ve spent my whole life trying to be a star, and these are the real things.
RAY I dunno why you all you Americans want to be stars. Seems a strange thing to want to be a star, floating in all that blackness, millions of miles away from anything else. I don’t mind looking at them, but if it was a choice between being a star and being me, I’d choose to keep my feet right here on earth.
JONATHAN What do you do, Ray?
RAY I look at stars, mate. Hey you had breakfast?
NARRATOR For the next three months, I eat, swim, lie in the sun and look at the stars. I’m surrounded by new friends. I finally found my break and it wasn’t the break I thought I was looking for; it was a break break: time to chill out and figure out what I really wanted from life. In the spring, I had to return to the states. It was time to go back to work. Ray tried to give me the telescope.
JONATHAN Ray, I can’t take this, I’m going back to New York man, we can’t see stars, the only people with telescopes in New York city are perverts.
RAY I’m not giving it to ya Jono, I’m loaning it to ya. You’ve got to bring it back to Waiheke when you come back next year.
JONATHAN I don’t even know if I’m coming back.
RAY Well you’ll have to now, won’t ya?
JONATHAN It’s a deal.
THE DEATH OF IRVING SAYLES, 1914
FULLER Irving Sayles, there you are, come on in my man, all of Christchurch is in that theatre waiting to see your charming black face.
IRVING You’re a cold man Mr Fuller, colder than this here ice box of a town. Christchurch? What’s Christ got to do with a place like this. I call that false advertising. It should be Polar Bearsville if it’s gonna be like this in the middle of summer.
FULLER I’m not paying you tell me jokes Irving, now get your cake walk on and get on the damned stage.
IRVING You’ve played me false Mr Fuller. And I resent you for it.
FULLER Irving, I don’t play you false, I pay you well. You’re the one who’s being difficult, now come on back in.
IRVING Come on back in? Oh, I’d love to come on back in Mr Fuller, and by come on back in I mean to Australia. I would love to come on back into Australia because that’s where my wife is, and that’s where my life is, and somehow you manage to sail me over to New Zealand without mentioning that if I leave Australia, they might not let me back in to Australia.
FULLER What are you talking about Irving?
IRVING I’m talking about the White Australia policy just passed. In case you’ve gone blind I’m black.
FULLER That’s a nonsense Irving. That law was brought in to keep out the slitty-eyed and the camel jockeys. You’re an English-speaking coon, you’re as good as a white man over there. You’re celebrated.
IRVING Rule is rules. What if they give me the test?
FULLER It’s a dictation test. To see that you have the command of the English language.
IRVING That’s the problem Mr Fuller. Dictation. I can speak it, but lord knows I sure can’t write it.
FULLER Irving, you can’t write?
IRVING You didn’t know that about me, did ya? Do you know anything about me, Mr Fuller? I don’t blame you cos I don’t know anything about me either. I came out here to the underside of the world to be everything that I can truly be. But you know what I found out? I’m just a bus for other people’s jokes to ride in, other people’s songs to hitch a lift. I can turn my hand to any sport but it ain’t my sport. I’m just a shell. I don’t know who Irving Sayles is, so I dress him up in a nice suit and smoke a fat cigar and everyone loves Irving Sayles, but who is he? If you ever find out tell me cos I’d sure like to know. I don’t even know if I’m happy or sad.
Irving has a heart attack
IRVING Oh Lord, Oh Lord my God.
FULLER Irving? Irving Sayles?
NARRATOR Irving Sayles was pronounced dead in the street of a coronary embolism. Caused by an oversized heart. He was forty-two years old.
NEW YORK, 2000s
NARRATOR Back in New York I work as a tour guide, my tours always begin
JONATHAN Off to our left we see the Statue of Liberty, it is a colossal neoclassical sculpture gifted to the United States by the people of France. It is a robed female figure representing Libertas, the Roman goddess of freedom. A broken chain lies at her feet. The statue has become an iconic symbol of freedom and of the United States.
NARRATOR Like a lot of New Yorkers I have never been to visit the statue prior to working here as a tour guide. Let’s face it, as an African American and a descendant of slaves I’ve always found the symbolism to ironic to say the least. I realise that I’ve found my freedom on the underside of the world, and I start going back. I was inspired to come by Irving Sayles, so I decided to find out what became of him.
Linwood Cemetery, Christchurch, plot J56. Irving Sayles’ grave is the same as it has been for 99 years. Barren, unmarked. He was the most celebrated performer of his time and now all that is left to remember him is weeds.
Both of us came to the underside of the world to become everything we could truly hope to be. One of us found fame, and the other found freedom, and of the two of us, I truly believe that I got the better deal.
I am Jonathan Council, he is Irving Sayles, thank you for coming to hear our strangely similar, yet happily different stories.
The End
Dark Stars has played extensively throughout New Zealand and Australia and performed two sold-out showcases in New York. It was presented at La Mama in Melbourne and was nominated for the Artrage Award for Best Play at the Perth Fringe. It won Best Non-Fiction Script at the United Solo Theatre Festival in New York, 2013.