'10th Anniversary of Road Train - The Musical'

As originally posted on the Arts Hub website. By Lisette Kaleveld. Your Arts Hub membership card can sometimes knock a few dollars off the price of your theatre ticket. But for this play a truck driver’s licence is what you needed to flash for the concession price. Unsurprisingly, Road Train the Musical’s audience differed from the usual arty clique. Truck drivers and transport industry workers turned out in healthy numbers to see this quirky theatre piece that stirred up mischief, laughter and reflection about life on the road. The script (by playwright Hellie Turner), venue, marketing, and ultimately the turn-out for Road Train the Musical combine to offer a shining example of audience development in the arts. The production by kompany M was first performed in WA in 1998 on the back of a Mack Truck, parked centre stage. The actors, the truck, and a mock-up truck for good measure toured Australia in 2000, performing everywhere from Melbourne to Alice Springs. In April Road Train ‘rumbled back into town’ to celebrate its 10th anniversary back at home base in truckie heartland: a rustic “shed” theatre at Taylors Art and Coffee House in Middle Swan, WA. Through humour, yarn and song, the play explores trucking life without trimming away the truthful, gritty edges. We meet the boisterous, fun-loving engine mechanic Shelley and with her ‘truckionary’ of trucking terms in tow, we journey through the A-Z of trucking in Australia. A surprising amount is covered: road safety, truck envy, road station blues and the nomadic loneliness of making a mile. The fact that trucking is a male-dominated industry, of course, shines through. But the ladies are never far away. Just off to the side the three-woman ensemble, the Truckettes, watch on and chime in with original country and western songs. They bring to the play a female perspective that’s warm-hearted and sometimes cheeky, as they explore the impacts of trucking on family life. Anyone who’s worked in transport would recognise the authenticity of the characters in Road Train. Supremely likeable, the energetic Tonka, Maxie, Ernie, Shelley and her skittish beau Stringer are as exuberant and irreverent as anyone you’d meet in a roadhouse in remote Australia, and the comic insight and witty dialogue they share about life on the road makes for a memorable evening.