Bringing Harry Home

Ian Ruskin as Harry Bridges on World Maritime Day

You could call it channelling, but that's a bit dodgy, actor Ian Ruskin confided. Yet only minutes into his one man play Ruskin seems to tap into an intangible something and before long Harry Bridges is back among us.

For some who knew him well, it was like seeing a ghost.

"It's his every gesture," said Carmen Bull, wife of former union secretary Tas Bull, who had Harry stay at their home during his Australian visits.

"You look like Harry, you sound like Harry, you are Harry," was the reaction of a retired longshoremen and old comrade of one of the greatest union leaders the world has ever produced.

Harry Bridges is the Melbourne boy who went to sea and came ashore in the United States in the roaring twenties. He worked the wharves and organised the West Coast, founding the International Longshore and Warehouse Union which he led until a few years before he died in 1990.

Four years ago, LA based Ruskin, a graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, London, brought Harry back to life. And this year we brought Harry home.

With the help of a grant from the Denis Freeney scholarship SEARCH and airfares from solicitors Turner and Freemen, the union flew 'Harry' to Australia.

He made a short appearance at World Maritime Day, Darling Harbour, Sydney, the Melbourne stopwork meeting, and Patrick, Port Botany. This was all about reminding members of the strong links between the ILWU and the MUA and putting the dispute about to blow in the States on the agenda.

The highlight of the visit was a full length stage performance From Wharf Rats to Lord of the Docks in Sydney on the night of September 23.

The play coincided with the 70th anniversary of the New Theatre which celebrates union links going back to 1932 when the Workers' Art Club found its first permanent home in the Seamen's Union rooms in Pitt Street. Its first secretary was an ex crewman. And from 1953-1962 New Theatre was housed in the wharfies Sussex Street hall, with actors performing under the auspices of the WWF Cultural Committee.

Lyn Collingwood, star Home and Away , and founding members related some anecdotes of the theatres working class background before introducing one of America's best known workers' plays Waiting for Lefty by Clifford Odets. It is the story of class conflict set in the thirties and ending with the murder of a union official.

One of the lead actors was none other than Elnar, grandson of former WWF national secretary Norm Docker.

Then Harry took the stage.

From Wharf Rats to Lord of the Docks, a one man play, written, directed and performed by Ian Ruskin, is a powerful piece of theatre drawing on court documents, Harry's speeches, wharf culture and worker politics and, it seems, that intangible spirt that the truly great leaders leave with us long after they are gone.

The audience of mainly workers and unionists gave it a standing ovation.

Champagne corks were popped then it was back to Hollywood in time for the real drama that was about to unfold on the West Coast.

The Wharfies' Wife

Meanwhile another play set on the wharves is now under way, with our very own Louise Sherrett (see MWJ, December, 1998) as the hero.

Wife of Brisbane wharfie Brad, Louise decided to overcome the family horror of the Patrick lock-out by putting her personal experience on paper.

But it is not easy for a Brisbane housewife and mother of two to become an overnight hit. So Louise sent an email to top Melbourne silk Julien Burnside, the QC who led and won the court action against Patrick and the Government.

A patron of the arts, Burnside commissioned leading Melbourne writer Barry Dickens to turn Sherrett's story into a one woman play. Burnside then cast Tanya Burne as The Wharfie's Wife. The Melbourne actor is one of only two Australians ever accepted at New Yorks' iconic Actors Studio where Marlon Brando and Marilyn Monroe studied, according to The Australian.

A reading of the play was performed at the Melbourne union rooms in August.

"It's tub-thumping, it's propaganda, it's love of the working class, there's no doubt about that," Dickens told The Australian.