All posts by Michael Burge

Journalist, author, artist
Write regardless!

The sum of a storyline

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SPEAKING OF US Jack Thompson and Russell Crowe in The Sum of Us.
SPEAKING OF US Jack Thompson and Russell Crowe in The Sum of Us (Photos: Jimmy Pozarik).

WHEN Hal McElroy, one of Australia’s most prolific film producers, read the play script The Sum of Us by David Stevens, he described it as “absolutely irresistible” – the two words every aspiring playwright wants to hear from a producer after just one read.

The desire to create a film of Stevens’ script was so firmly implanted that it took only four years to bring the work to the screen as one of the iconic Australian films of the 1990s.

Inspired by my first post on dramatic structure (a breakdown of the plot of William Rose’s Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner), I embarked on an analysis of The Sum of Us, not by watching the film, but by reading its screenplay, to see how closely it follows the classic five-part story arc widely purported to be the key to all good storytelling.

With flashbacks that shed light on the family which is the centre of the story, and regular breaking of the ‘fourth wall‘ (the imaginary barrier between a character and their audience), The Sum of Us presents as a less linear story than my first subject, and great fodder to observe how another writer might have bent ‘the rules’ in interesting ways.

Here’s what I found … beware, there are spoilers.

Exposition – “He hasn’t been this excited for ages”

The exposition must introduce us to the characters and show who is the protagonist (the hero) and the antagonist (the anti-hero, or ‘villain’); and the protagonist must be called to action, posing a question so interesting that we are gripped.

At the age of 24 Jeff Mitchell remembers his grandmother fondly as a woman with boundless love and energy for her grandchildren. He’s a plumber who lives in suburban Sydney with his widowed father Harry, a ferry captain. Jeff (the protagonist) is getting ready to go out, with the strong chance of meeting that someone special at the pub that night. In the most loving, accepting manner, it’s Harry (the antagonist) who spills the beans that his son’s ‘someone special’ will be a man, not a woman. The call to action is Jeff’s memory of his grandmother’s great love for her partner, Mary; posing the big question: How did this obviously straight, typical Australian father become so accepting of his gay son?

Rising Action – “How can you be too bloody domestic?”

The rising actions are those the antagonist uses to thwart the protagonist and show us who both of them really are.

On his way to meet Greg, a gardener, at the local gay-friendly pub, Jeff reminds the audience that his Grandmother was a lesbian in a very long-term relationship with his “Aunt Mary”. Their kind of love is something he aspires to. Harry, meanwhile, calls Joyce, whom he met through a dating agency, and arranges to meet her for lunch. Jeff and Greg get on like a house on fire and make their way home, but Harry proceeds to make Greg so welcome that a night of passion becomes a scene of domestic normality, the likes of which Greg, with his homophobic father, has never experienced. Jeff’s date is ruined by his well-meaning but overbearing Dad.

RISING ACTION Russell Crowe and John Polson get close.
RISING ACTION Russell Crowe and John Polson get close.

Climax – “If only you’d been honest”

The climax must be the start of a battle between the protagonist and the antagonist, and a turning point after which there is no going back for either.

Harry and Joyce’s relationship develops so easily it puts Jeff and Greg’s false start into sharp perspective. Jeff is staying at home, depressed. Harry reveals his relationship with Joyce and declares he will marry her only if she and his son get on, although he has not yet told her that Jeff is gay. Jeff is thrilled for his father, but when Joyce visits, she innocently stumbles across the gay magazines Harry bought for Jeff, is affronted by the presence of homosexuality in the family she was seriously considering becoming a part of, and leaves. As the city celebrates New Years Eve, a deeply disappointed Harry has a stroke while watching the fireworks from the porch.

Falling Action – “I didn’t have the guts” 

The falling action must play out the battle between the protagonist and the antagonist, allowing one of them to win. The winner defines the piece as a comedy or a tragedy.

When Harry wakes up in hospital, Jeff is there to comfort him, and immediately steps up to the plate as his father’s primary carer. Greg, meanwhile, gets thrown out of home for participating in Sydney’s Gay Mardi Gras. Despite being neutralised by his inability to speak or walk, Harry causes a scene at the supermarket in order that Jeff and Greg meet again. Joyce comes to visit Harry at home, and is confronted by the love the Mitchell family have for one another, and she leaves, acknowledging to herself that she has missed out on sharing in it. Harry ponders what it is to lose love, once it has been made.

Dénouement – “How do you say thankyou for love?”

The dénouement (“to untie”) must unravel all the conflict and bring everything to a sense of resolution. In a comedy, the protagonist is better off than when they started. In a tragedy, this is reversed. The big question posed in the exposition must be left answered.

Reminiscing on the core love of his family, Harry recalls the day that he and his brother separated his mother and her long-term partner Mary, in their old age, wondering what they would have said to one another the night before they knew they would never see one another ever again. On a day trip to the botanic gardens, Harry notices Greg is working there, and ensures the two men meet yet again. Jeff and Greg talk. Both men have been set free from the expectations and fears of their fathers, and there is a great sense that they’ll continue growing the love of the Mitchell family together

FATHER OF THE CENTURY Harry Mitchell is a hard-to-pick anti-hero.
FATHER OF THE CENTURY Harry Mitchell is a hard-to-pick anti-hero.

The Verdict

Picking the antagonist and protagonist in this screenplay was difficult – most of the characters are affable and it was hard to position one of them as an anti-hero. But it is Harry Mitchell, Jeff’s father, who unwittingly places the obstacles in the way of his son’s happiness, by being so very keen for his son to experience the joys of love as he defines it.

Jeff is not a classic protagonist either – in the climax he remains almost neutral and does not seem to ‘do battle’ with his father in the relationship stakes. This is because ‘the battle’ is a lot deeper in this plot than usual.

This is a story about relationships in the one family – there is Gran and Mary, separated tragically after forty years; there is Harry and Joyce, trying to rebuild love after losing it to death and divorce; and there is Jeff and Greg, attempting to start a relationship from scratch under conditions that are not favourable.

But these moments of guilt and inspiration are played-out through the father-son relationship of Jeff and Harry, and it’s the lessons that Gran taught these men which make the flashbacks in the script essential (especially the placement of Jeff’s boyhood recollection of Gran and Mary’s love right in the exposition), because they ultimately see Jeff and Harry through their own battle.

WRITE REGARDLESSAnd it’s that discovery which answers the big question posed in the Exposition: it was Gran Mitchell’s courageous love that caused her son Harry to accept his son so unconditionally, and made him capable of taking emotional risks out of love for his son.

© Michael Burge, all rights reserved.

 An extract from Write, Regardless!
LGBTIQ Equality, My Story

Writing my way out of the closet

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GAY MESSIAH Graham Chapman in Monty Python's The Life of Brian.
GAY MESSIAH Graham Chapman

A Writer finally comes out.

THE late, great Monty Python comedian Graham Chapman was the inspiration for my coming out.

In the year that homosexuality was decriminalised in the UK, he famously hosted a party for all his friends, introduced them to his male partner, then got on with his life.

The news didn’t reach our small town until long after my homophobic brother and his poofter-hating mates had come to revere Chapman and his cohorts as the best thing on their TV screens, but it was a great affirmation for me to discover that the Python’s camp humour had its roots in a living, breathing homosexual.

I wanted to find a similar way to tell everyone myself and thought seriously about hosting a coming out party at my very first house in the town of Katoomba in the Blue Mountains. But it became apparent very quickly that there was no way I’d get everyone I knew and loved in the same place at the same time – they had far too many ‘issues’.

A few very close friends, and my sister Jen, already knew. I’d told them in person after going through much angst.

I have always been much better at expressing myself in writing than any other form of communication anyway, so I embarked on writing to everyone in my life. Not just a few people, but everyone – I drew no line in the sand for my sake, or theirs.

The first step was to find a beautiful book of postcards, and I was attracted to a lovely set by Asian master print-makers. I took my time and wrote that I had come to terms with my sexuality, sharing the good news that this had given me a much-needed dose of personal happiness.

When the writing task was complete, I determined that I’d walk to the local post office, buy enough stamps for well over 100 postcards, and simply post my future out to the world.

It proved to be one of the longest walks in my life.

Katoomba is a very small community, and as luck would have it I met many people I knew along the way, some of them what I’ll call ‘Difficult Cases’ – people for whom my postcard news was going to come as something of a challenge.

I endured their meaningless chit-chat, and just internalised my resolve to keep going to the post box, through which I was convinced freedom from the closet was only days away.

The first phone call came from my cousin, whose instant, unquestioning support spoke volumes of acceptance. Great start.

Two family friends turned up. Over cups of tea this support lessened a little when the inevitable “I already knew” crept into the conversation.

If they already knew, why hadn’t they had enough courage to be inclusive when they’d asked, quite regularly, did I “have a girlfriend?” by adding just three words to that question, “or a boyfriend?”

REACHING OUT Coming to terms with sexuality is an internal journey.
REACHING OUT Coming to terms with sexuality is a journey out of oneself

Stony silence stretched out in many cases to more than a week, followed by stilted phone conversations in which people forced themselves to utter what they thought they should say.

Some Difficult Cases needed a little encouragement, so I went to see them. One crossed the street when he saw me. One broached the subject with a weird question: “Why do all lesbians hate men?” as though I’d know the answer even if such an ignorant assertion were remotely true. One looked startled when I passed her at the supermarket, her face not altering as I smiled, made eye contact, said “hello,” and kept going, since obviously she had a problem.

One assumed my postcard was a suicide letter. Another misread the words “I am gay,” thinking I’d written “I am angry”. What can you do?

“I am gay too,” was an interesting response, from the married father of two. That was out of the blue!

But it wasn’t all bad or weird: “Got your lovely postcard,” said dear Sal, mentor, friend, superwoman and strong out lesbian who’d long inspired me.

And the phone call from my grandmother, who said that she would help me find a cure, because: “They can fix all kinds of things these days, you know”.

“But I’m not sick grandma, I don’t need a cure,” I replied.

“Oh thank goodness,” she said, quick as a flash, her total belief in the way I felt about myself eclipsed generations of people in her wake.

At her 90th birthday a few months later, she raised her arms in delight when I arrived, enfolded me in a hug as the shouted: “You are so special!” so loudly that it echoed off the ranks of Difficult Cases in the family, standing in maudlin, silent rows. Priceless, unconditional acceptance.

With all the consummate skill of a country woman Grandma had hand-made clothes for my dolls when I was a toddler. She never questioned my behavior, or shamed me, she just joined in the fun and made a safe place for a young gay boy to play.

The overwhelming majority of my postcard’s recipients I never heard from again – close family friends, people I grew up with, people who were welcome in our home and accepted by our family in the face of their own ‘scandals’, people who had cried on my shoulder when I shared the intimate details about our mother, their friend, as she died. People who should have known a lot better by the accepting example that she set.

Some Difficult Cases hung in there for a while, but fell away in the wake of me manifesting my first gay relationship. For many people it’s okay if you’re gay and single (and lonely!) but bringing a partner into their home creates a challenge of “What do we tell the neighbours?” proportions, poor things.

For someone who was sent-off from his community with a mass of support, I certainly came home to a resounding rejection.

But growing up in that community had taught me to help others, so it was with a great sense of validation that I later heard about another coming out.

“I’ve done a Mike,” one young gay family friend said to his loved ones as he got real a few years after I did, at a much earlier stage in his life.

That was all I needed to hear that I’d done exactly the right thing, the Difficult Cases be damned.

To anyone who is closeted, my best advice is to love whoever you want. If anyone has the guts to ask you what your sexual orientation is, reward their courage by telling them your truth. Forget coming-out – it’s just society’s outmoded and unnecessarily pressure-filled way of working out who is ‘normal’ and who is (to quote The Life of Brian) a “very naughty boy”.

© Michael Burge, all rights reserved.

My Story, Writers

The tale of a legend

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STONE SISTERS The Three Sisters rock formation abive the Jamison Valley, Echo Point, Katoomba, Blue Mountains, Australia (Photo: JJ Harrison).
STONE SISTERS The Three Sisters rock formation above the Jamison Valley, Echo Point, Katoomba, Blue Mountains (Photo: JJ Harrison).

A short look at a tall story

WHEN I arrived back in Australia after living in the UK for most of the 1990s, I was attracted back to the region where I did most of my growing up – The Blue Mountains, a World Heritage wilderness only 100 kilometres west of Sydney.

I eventually settled there and fell in love with the place all over again, embarking on a research and writing cycle that would continue for the next twelve years.

This all began with the news that the region’s ‘original’ story, the so-called ‘Legend of the Three Sisters‘, which had been taught to generations of Australian children as a genuine Aboriginal myth (and sold to millions of international tourists), had in fact been made up by a non-Aboriginal man.

I was eventually given the opportunity to publish a feature article on this subject in the December-January 2011 edition of Blue Mountains Life Magazine (Vintage Press).

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are warned that the following article contains images and references to deceased persons.

Legends, Interrupted

How the Aboriginal legend of the Three Sisters trumped a tall story

Across the Mountains of the late 1970s wonders were common – a witch’s shadowy profile cast across rocks, colourful mountains devil ornaments, and a train ride straight down a cliff. My young imagination also lapped up a legend told on postcards, tea towels, a fountain, and an illustrated book.

The legend told of three Aboriginal sisters who disturbed a bunyip in the valley and were saved by their father who turned them into stone using a magic bone. He transformed himself into a lyrebird to escape, but in doing so lost the bone, leaving him to search the undergrowth (as lyrebirds do) so that one day he might find it and turn them all back into human form.

This story held more intrigue for me than explorer’s achievements, which were taught with a sense of pride at school. But there was a silence on local Aboriginal heritage, and I grew to assume there was little to know about the tribe in the Three Sisters legend.

Fifteen years later I attended a reconciliation meeting and met Gundungurra and Darug people mobilising to work on Native Title claims. Around that time a story hit the local media that the Aboriginal legend of the three sisters was created by a non-Aboriginal man. In the fallout, even that claim turned-out to be untrue – the first fake was actually written by a caucasian schoolgirl with a rather apt surname – Patricia Stone.

SIXTIES SISTERS Lyall Randolph's water sculpture of the Three Sisters graced the entrance of the Scenoc Railway from the 1960s to the 2000s (Photo: Tim Driver).
SIXTIES SISTERS Lyall Randolph’s water sculpture of the Three Sisters (Photo: Tim Driver).

“None of that was a revelation to Gundungurra people around here,” Gundungurra Elder Sharyn Halls says at Echo Point this year. “We always knew what the tourists were told was a made-up story. Many of us thought it was quite funny what visitors were willing to believe.”

The day is just dawning and already flocks of tourists are arriving to take in the panoramic view which is one of the Blue Mountains’ biggest drawcards.

“My father Lenny McNally used to stand me and my siblings here and tell us the stories about the land all around,” Sharyn says, sweeping her arms from east to west. “The story of this place is much, much more than the Three Sisters, from here you can see all the waterways and pathways of our traditional land.”

Sharyn grew up in Bankstown, but spent weekends and holidays in the Blue Mountains. “We’d go camping out to the Megalong Valley with Dad and our immediate and extended families. After a while we realised we were only being taken to places that were important, we were being shown our country. During those trips I learnt how to catch and gather food, and other skills to do with family life, from my Nana Lindsay.

LOCAL KNOWLEDGE Gundungurra Elder Sharryn Halls.
LOCAL KNOWLEDGE Gundungurra Elder Sharyn Halls.

“Dad liked to travel, to the Southern Highlands and out to Jenolan. He was a jockey and he’d round-up the wild brumbies from the valleys. In the Megalong he’d break them in, then muster them into Camden for sale.

“He knew the best way to get there through the mountains – he’d been taken out there with the old men who still spoke traditionally, and they knew the routes between all these places. But Dad wasn’t taught his language, only bits and pieces. Unfortunately he and his generation had to change to survive.”

Survival for Gundungurra people meant making difficult decisions when forced to leave their country.

“People ended up in Katoomba in a place they already knew and used called The Gully,” Sharyn relates. “They made a conscious decision to come, because there were resources here, and they could avoid the mission system. If you ended up in a mission you were only encouraged to settle down. The movement of Aboriginal people was restricted right into the 20th century.”

Gundungurra man Ron Fletcher recalls: “Our family lived for two periods in The Gully in about 1940 and 1949. Everyone got on really well down there because we were all battlers”.

“Our Aunty May and Uncle George Hannah, and Uncle Jack Brooks were still living in The Gully when they built the Catalina Racetrack,” Ron recalls of devastating events in 1957, when Gully residents’ homes and community were demolished to make way for a commercial racing development.

“It wasn’t until 1988, when they put up a memorial at the old Megalong cemetery, that my sister Dawn was reminded that our great grandparents were buried down there. That got her curious about our Aboriginal heritage. Dawn was never a backwards kind of person,” Ron smiles. “She felt very strongly about that side of her, and many people with Aboriginal blood were starting to take notice of how things were changing.”

Dawn Colless (1932-2003) became ‘Aunty Dawn’, elder of the Katoomba Clan of the Gundungurra at a time when local indigenous people began reclaiming their place in the Blue Mountains. One point of focus was The Gully, where the Catalina racetrack had long since fallen into disrepair.

An excellent speaker heard by many giving Welcomes to Country, Aunty Dawn told anyone who would listen about the significance of Gundungurra places and sacred sites. She was also the keeper of a secret she’d been entrusted with as a girl by her mother and grandmother – a legend about the Three Sisters.

“Our Aboriginal family had to be very careful when telling us about the old ways – they were frightened we would be taken away,” Dawn’s brother recalls. “I can remember the inspectors coming to our house twice,” Ron smiles, “I think when they saw we all looked well-fed, that we were being looked after”.

“Not many people realised how ill Dawn was in her last years,” Ron remembers. “She was determined to do what she could in the time she had left. Not long before she died, she agreed to meet some visiting indigenous women. They told her the Three Sisters were linked to the Seven Sisters, and a sacred site as important as Uluru.”

In 2002 Dawn told what she knew of the legend of her mothers to the Gundungurra Native Title hearing. Local authorities began to consult with Gundungurra people about public versions of the legend of the Three Sisters. The Gully, or ‘Garguree’, was proclaimed an Aboriginal place in the same year.

Sharyn Halls is adamant that: “It’s about time the traditional people of The Blue Mountains take a leading role in tourism here, to get out there and understand their country, to be independent, not reliant.”

“So much information about our stories has been lost because we didn’t really have anyone to ask,” Ron says. “We are the last to remember our Aboriginal side. It was always in me, but I was very reluctant at first. Dawn was so passionate about Aboriginal affairs that she inspired me.

GULLY GUIDE Gundungurra Elder Ron Fletcher showing local dignitaries the entrance to Guragaree, 'The Gully', Katoomba.
GULLY GUIDE Gundungurra Elder Ron Fletcher.

“Sometime I go to The Gully to interpret it for visitors as part of the Reconnecting to Country project, with some of the other Gully elders. I’ve been on trips down to the Burragorang, and it makes you feel strong, and you feel they’re walking with you, your family who have been there long before you.”

Today, many tourist destinations in the Blue Mountains assiduously avoid interpreting the Three Sister story at all, but a public version of the Gundungurra legend is available. What’s interesting to note is the inclusion of Patricia Stone’s names for the sister – Gunnedoo, Wimlah and Meenhi – the result of a variety of spellings over the years.

“Because of what happened to Gundungurra people, the continuity of our stories was broken. Our stories were diluted with other stories. The structure is there, but it’s in a different form,” Sharyn Halls outlines. “The important thing is that you don’t interpret someone else’s story on their behalf, you only tell your own. Patricia Stone’s story is one version, many people don’t really care it got told so much”.

“The legend of the Three Sisters is just basic practical education for youngsters not to stray from the safety of their home. It’s a thread that runs through all the versions I know of,” Sharyn explains. “Some of the names are a bit strange,” she laughs, “but nevertheless people have used them. I believe one hundred percent that’s what the legend is.”

© Michael Burge, all rights reserved.

Secret Means Business

TALE FOR SALE Victor Barnes' 1972 Golden Book.
TALE FOR SALE Victor Barnes’ 1972 Golden Book.

Milestones in the commercialisation of the fake Aboriginal Legend of the Three Sisters.

1931 The Sydney Morning Herald publishes ‘The Three Sisters’ by Patricia Stone (who visited Katoomba c.1925). The names ‘Wimalah’, ‘Meeni’ and ‘Gunedoo’ first appear in print. The sisters are giants turned to stone by Yooma (a tribal wizard) to protect them from a neighbouring tribe during a battle.

1949 Outdoors and Fishing Magazine publishes ‘Legends of the Mountains’ by naturalist Charles Melbourne (‘Mel’) Ward (1903-1966), who moved to the Mountains in 1943. Patricia Stone’s version is used uncredited in reworded form, including her names for the sisters.

TALE TELLER Naturalist Charles Melbourne ('Mel') Ward was resposible for disseminating the fake legend of Katoomba's Three Sisters.
TALE TELLER Naturalist Charles Melbourne (‘Mel’) Ward.

1950’s Mel Ward distributes Legends of the Mountains from his museum in the grounds of the Hydro Majestic hotel in Medlow Bath, claiming to have been told the legend by Aboriginal people.

1967 Bondi Mermaid sculptor Lyall Randolph’s Three Sisters fountain is installed at The Scenic Railway, telling a variation of Stone’s legend with coin-operated narration punctuated by water spouts. The money is donated to charity.

1972 Golden Books publishes The Legend of the Three Sisters by Victor Barnes, a new illustrated version of the transformation of the three sisters into stone by their father to save them from a bunyip.

1997 The Blue Mountains Gazette published ‘The Three Sisters story Untrue?’ in which linguist Charles Illert proposes: “The story behind Katoomba’s Three Sisters may be a myth created by white men with large imaginations.”

2000s A new (as yet incomplete) sculpture by Terrance Plowright replaces Lyall Randolph’s at Scenic World (formerly The Scenic Railway) in Katoomba.

2013 Various non-Aboriginal versions of The Three Sisters legend still disseminated in written form to Blue Mountains tourists.

ROYAL INTERPRETATION The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge with Anthea Hammon and Randall Walker at Echo Point.
ROYAL INTERPRETATION The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge at Echo Point.

2014 During the 10-minute visit of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to Echo Point, local business identities Randall Walker (interim CEO of Blue Mountains Lithgow and Oberon Tourism) and Anthea Hammon (joint managing director of Scenic World) interpret the Jamison Valley for the royal couple.

Gundungurra and Darug elders and tourism representatives meet the Duke and Duchess but are not visibly seen to interpret their traditional lands for the visitors.

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(Source and further reading: ‘Aboriginal Legends of the Blue Mountains’ by Jim Smith, Den Fenella Press, 2003).

This article appears in Michael’s eBook Creating Waves: Critical takes on culture and politics.