‘A Strong Brown God,
The Mary River Diary

A Strong Brown God was performed at the Metro Arts Theatre in Brisbane in 1996. Written, directed and performed by Steven, it was an account of his journey on foot along the length of the Mary River, from its source near Maleny to where it reaches the sea, near Maryborough.

Steven was following the route taken by some of the first white men to enter the region; Stephen Simpson, the Crown Commissioner for Lands, and Christoph Eipper, a Lutheran priest. They had set out from Moreton Bay in 1842 with the intention of finding a site for a new aboriginal settlement in what was then known as The Larger Bunya Country, now Kenilworth. They travelled in the company of the two pardoned runaways, Bracewell and Davis, who acted as guides, as well as that of twelve soldiers and a team of bullocks and dray.

The performance was many-layered. Steven told stories from both his own, and Eipper and Simpson’s, diaries, while three screens showed photographs taken throughout the Mary Valley, contemporary scenes as well as archival shots of early settlers and surviving aboriginals.
Amongst other themes the play sought to consider change in the landscape, both our response to it and our responsibility for it.

Maryanne Lynch, reviewing the play in Real Time, wrote:
‘ Lang, quietly sitting at a camp table to one side of the screens, dominated the piece with his measured reading…beyond Lang’s desire to find connection, connections became apparent; differences weren’t assimilated but found accommodation in small moments of pain, bewilderment or some other experience of exile. Like [William Yang’s] Sadness, A Strong Brown God offered itself as autobiographical – a seductive notion when the performer draws upon recognisable personal experiences. What both pieces highlighted, for me, was that the search for meaning now begins with the self, and that all else must be discovered, not in the nineteenth century style, but in a constant struggle to not make meaning one’s own. Lang’s piece showed the difficulty, as well as the possibilities, of this act.’

Steven has recently been awarded a RADF grant to transfer the play to DVD and will be undertaking the project with the aid of Ross Smith in the latter half of 2006.

Excerpts will be available on this website soon. en