‘A transgender warrior at a time when there was no understanding of her condition,' Mark Tedeschi QC.
As part of the Mardi Gras 2017 Festival program this ground breaking Australian play The Trouble With Harry tells the astonishing real life story of Harry Crawford, who was actually a woman, Eugenia Falleni.
Crawford was the assumed male persona of Falleni, who was born biologically a woman in Italy in 1875. Raised in New Zealand, she ran away from her unhappy home as a teenager. Assuming the name ‘Eugene’ – Falleni worked as a merchant seaman for some months before her real gender was discovered by the ship’s captain (who repeatedly raped her before abandoning her ashore) alone and pregnant in Australia. After giving birth to a daughter Josephine (who was then placed into foster care). Eugenia reinvented herself as immigrant Scotsman Harry Crawford, an identity that would mostly go unchallenged until Crawford was brought in for questioning by police after a partially incinerated body found near a picnic spot in Lane Cove in 1917 was identified as Annie Birkett, Crawford's missing wife. The trial was one of the most scandalous and sensational ever conducted during the 20th century in Sydney.
Lachlan Philpott's script is sparsely, elegantly written. A Man (Thomas Campbell) and A Woman (Niki Owen) act as narrators like a Greek chorus commenting and explaining events – they also play various roles such as neighbours. With its overlapping speech patterns and rhythms I thought this might make a terrific radio play and was perhaps reminded of Under Milkwood.
Under Kate Gaul‘s assured direction there are minimal sets, just a raised platform and some gauzy drapes allowing for fluid staging and scene changes. Lighting is provided by hanging lamps of the era. There are some boxes, tables and chairs that can be carried on and off as required. The small theatre has been transformed into the courtroom and there is an edgy, intense atmosphere helped by the use of haze. The set is designed like a courtroom with some audience members on three sides of the stage, some very close up to the action.
Josephine, Crawford’s (Falleni’s) daughter was terrifically played by Bobbie -Jean Henning as a trouble making, spitfire tomboy who loves prying and finding out secrets. She is angry and bitter. It is she who inadvertently in great distress one day blurts out Harry’s secret – that her ‘father’ is in fact her ‘mother’.
Annie Birkett, Harry Crawford’s ‘wife’ and mother to the young Harry Birkett was given a warm, sympathetic performance by Jane Phegan. As to Annie (a widow when she married Harry) was she really fooled by what happened in the bedroom between them or did she decide to make the best of it?
Young Harry Birkett, Harry Crawford‘s rather naïve, innocent young teenage step son was terrifically played by Jonas Thomson. As Harry Crawford, Jodie Le Vesaconte was superb with a striking resemblance to the real Harry (of photographs). She is totally believable as a rather gruff, secretive and taciturn yet charismatic, warm and charming male.
We will never really know what happened that afternoon of Annie’s death and the picnic at Lane Cove. Was Annie’s death actually a tragic accident? The trial and Falleni’s life afterword are rushed through, skimmed over right at the end of the play.
To paraphrase what Mark Tedeschi QC points out in his brilliant biography of Falleni, what we really need to ask now in the 21st century is: ‘was there sufficient evidence to justify Eugenia’s conviction for murder’?
The Trouble With Harry is also, as Tedeschi said, a celebration of Falleni, who was: ‘a transgender warrior at a time when there was no understanding of her condition and no support for her cause’. The play examines gender and identity and how the social mores of the time severely restricted Falleni/Crawford and is a plea for all those forced to live a lie.
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
The Trouble With Harry
By Lachlan Philpott
Presented by Siren Theatre Co in association with Seymour Centre
Director: Kate Gaul
Featuring: Thomas Campbell, Bobbie-Jean Henning, Jodie Le Vesconte, Jonas Thomson, Niki Owen, Jane Phegan
Designer: Alice Morgan
Composer & Sound Designer: Nate Edmondson
Lighting Designer: Matt Cox
Movement Consultant: Natalia Ladyko
The Seymour Centre, Chippendale
16 February – 3 March 2017
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