A former Justice of the High Court of Australia - the Honourable Michael Kirby - might seem an odd pairing with star of stage and screen Uncle Jack Charles, given the latter’s career being punctuated by 22 jail terms, and yet, there’s a stroke of genius to it.
Bright beacons of Australia’s queer community, they’ve both witnessed huge changes since 1978’s inaugural Mardi Gras march. These observations form the basis of an In Conversation talk hosted by Benjamin Law at Belvoir Theatre in conjunction with NSW Young Lawyers and the Inner-City Community Legal Centre, during this year’s 40th anniversary festival.
The battle ahead
Kirby has lived in Sydney with his partner Johan van Vloten since 1969, six years before South Australia became the first Australian state to decriminalise homosexuality in 1975. NSW followed in 1984, with 22 years passing before Tasmania became the last state to do so in 1997.
He notes that the law moves slowly, and that politicians often lag behind. “Many politicians are not the slightest bit interested in law reform or injustice to people, especially minorities who aren’t going to have big votes,” he says over the phone in a tight squeeze between meetings.
Welcoming marriage equality, Kirby remains a prominent critic of the postal survey process. “It was a disgrace,” he says. “Australia is a parliamentary democracy and we deal with our disputes in parliament… if you take issues out into the streets you are going to enliven all sorts of prejudice and bias and lack of familiarity and stupid decisions.”
He adds, “It was designed to kill off gay marriage but in the end it didn’t, and so there was a silver lining, but that doesn’t remove the fact that this was a very bad precedent and I hope we won’t see it again in my lifetime.”
It’s important that the LGBTIQ community remain vigilant, Kirby argues, pointing to the subsequent push to protect religious freedoms. “The battles are not yet over. We are now going to get all sorts of demands for people to be able to express discrimination against gay people in ordinary commercial dealings.
“I am not an anti-religious person, I would still count myself as an Anglican Protestant Christian, but I’m afraid it’s going to be a little bit unpleasant in 2018.”
Kirby adds that we now have to focus on trans rights and on being better global citizens. “Australians are a bit inclined to just live on their island and look with disdain at everybody else… it’s important in these debates to lift your sights because in many parts of Asia the situation today is the same as it was when I was growing up in Australia in the 1950s and 60s.
“There’s great prejudice, there’s a lot of discrimination, there is violence and there are murders… marriage is not the most important issue in LGBT rights. You can get by perfectly well without a marriage certificate. My partner and I got by for 49 years. You can’t get by if you are being the subject of violence and murder.”
Dramatic reckoning
Aboriginal elder Charles, oozing cheeky vitality over the phone, is both a survivor of the Stolen Generation who did not meet a single relative until he was 17, and a gay man too. He knows a great deal about legal discrimination in this country.
Charles was 19, working as a glass beveller and living in a hostel in Northcote when he was discovered by the New Theatre in 1970. The very next year he co-founded Australia’s first indigenous theatre company Nindethana.
Enjoying early success, he was nevertheless reticent about coming out. “I never made much ado about my sexuality, before being in the theatre, because the Aboriginal community wasn’t fully accepting of me at that time,” he shares. “I’m only a small bloke so, you know, I feared the wrath of aboriginal Collingwood and Fitzroy, so I kept away, down in South Yarra for a number of years.”
That shifted as he settled into acting. “I realised that there were a few people in the theatre who were openly gay and we had a good rapport. It opened many more doors for me.”
He chuckles recalling that he first met one such theatrical mentor in a beat, or gay men’s cruising spot. “I’d travel around from beat to beat, like strangers in the night, looking for love and running away from the police.”
A young Barry Humphries, a fellow New Theatre alumni, was an early inspiration. “He stuck out through his development as Edna, and that was a blessing for me, seeing this young fella donning the garb of a matronly woman and then performing on stage. He was very witty.”
Drug addiction led to burglary and several stints in Melbourne’s infamous Pentridge Prison, where Charles’ cell became something of a sanctuary for young men in an often-violent environment that included Mark ‘Chopper’ Read.
“My personality shone through,” Charles says of his reasonably untroubled time there. “I would talk to anyone, even to the gangsters and the ones that weren’t openly gay. Just be like one of the boys. This is where I got to be a good actor. You have to have certain personifications for different settings and different people.”
His acting career continued throughout these troubled years and has prospered in later life too. Charles says he’s happy to see queer theatre so openly embraced these days, and is looking forward to chatting with Kirby then letting his voluminous grey hair down at Mardi Gras.
“The artists in the clubs nowadays are doing brilliant stuff,” he says. “They are so out there and in your face and though I don’t go to these places often, I like to keep my nose shiny and have a look, especially the drag shows. I think it’s sheer theatre and I just love it when they perform. I love going backstage, talking to them as they’re putting on their knickers and titties.”
Book tickets to hear Justice Michael Kirby and Uncle Jack Charles in conversation on February 19 here. Find out more about the Mardi Gras festival here.
