Festival review: My Cousin Frank
An iron fist in a padded boxing glove, Rhoda Roberts delivers a powerful tale of family strength and resilience with the phenomenal life story of her cousin, Francis Roberts, the first Aboriginal Olympian.
Rhoda Roberts AO is a powerhouse in Australian arts and media and her experience as a writer, performer, producer, journalist, broadcaster and Bundjalung elder all combine in this extraordinary feat of solo storytelling.
My Cousin Frank recounts the life of Francis ‘Honest Frank’ Roberts, a boxer from the small community of Cubawee in the Northern Rivers region, who became the first Indigenous athlete to represent Australia at the Tokyo Olympics in 1964.
Francis Roberts led a fascinating life, but in the hands of Rhoda Roberts, her cousin’s extraordinary journey becomes a rich and multi-layered historical tale, centring on a family’s pride in their identity and a community’s resilience in the face of extreme discrimination.
The set is simple – stage left is a wingback chair flanked by a small table and stage right hangs a vintage canvas punching bag and a stool with an old pair of boxing gloves. In the space between paces a slight woman with an enormous story.
To tell the tale of her cousin’s rise to boxing’s world stage, Roberts must begin with family. And after introducing her cousin Frank to the audience, it takes some time to return to him. But that’s because the Roberts clan is far more than the ‘Fighting Family of Lismore’ as they were known in the boxing world. This is a family packed with fighters of all descriptions – boxers, preachers and activists.
Against a backdrop of black and white photographs of family, boxing portraits and Northern Rivers country, Roberts brings her relatives to meet us, contextualising the world in which her extraordinary kin managed to thrive. Her father and grandfather, both preachers and activists, would tell their children “stand tall, head up, high up” and this becomes both a refrain throughout the performance and an explanation for the sense of identity and pride that runs through both the Roberts clan and the whole self-managed Indigenous community of Cubawee in the Northern Rivers.
Using the Olympic story of Frank Roberts as a touchstone, Rhoda Roberts’ storytelling weaves the local into the global. From Bundjalung lore and family tales, the story branches out to national history with the shameful practices of the Aboriginal Protection Board to the fight for Aboriginal rights and recognition in the 1960s and 70s. Roberts expertly pieces it all together, contrasting the respect and admiration her cousin received when dining with Emperor Hirohito in Tokyo with the appalling treatment of his community back home with the bulldozing of Cubawee.
Every minute of this tale – from her family listening to the Olympic broadcast on the wireless to the recounting of the ten-year fight to have Indigenous Australians recognised as citizens in the 1967 referendum – all is brilliantly woven together. Linking the smallest family anecdote to the sweep of the post-war civil rights movement, Roberts shows how the personal is deeply political and that a simple family motto can have global impact.
Rhoda Roberts delivers the vast sweep of this astonishing story with such warmth and humour that we could be sitting in her living room being shown photos from the family album. Once she’s taken us on this voyage through the histories of her family and community, we are brought back to Frank and his Olympic journey. And with the benefit of this intense grounding, we feel the family’s pride when Frank becomes the first Indigenous athlete chosen to represent Australia, and the outrage when he’s not considered a citizen and must travel to Tokyo to represent Australia under a British passport.
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This hour and a quarter solo performance is a compelling mix of family narrative, cultural sharing and Australian history. Behind this extraordinary monologue lies the work of brilliant collaborators including director Kirk Page and the production team at NORPA (Northern Rivers Performing Arts). Mic Gruchy and Jarvis Loveday deserve special mention for the powerful black and white visuals.
Rhoda Roberts is a unique hybrid of warmth and fierce advocacy, using her impressive repertoire of writing and stage craft to paint vivid portraits of a family whose legacy is determination and resilience. Rhoda Roberts has a fighter’s lineage, and this exceptional piece of historical storytelling is testament to this family spirit.
My Cousin Frank was performed at the Space Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre, from March 3-5
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