Brian Syron


Brian Syron was a human rights advocate, teacher, actor, writer, stage director and Australia's first Indigenous feature film director who has been recognised as the first First Nations feature film director.

Life

He was born on 19 November 1934 in Eora country in the inner city suburb of Balmain, Sydney, New South Wales, but, as he wrote in various papers and books:
When I was born our people had already experienced a holocaust beyond imagining. There were no Eora living a lifestyle of any kind on the banks of Tuhbowgule, Kamay or Deerubin. My birthplace had experienced a massacre from 1790 to 1802 and my people were our country's first resistance fighters

Syron also lived an indigenous life with his paternal grandmother in his ancestral Birrippi lands at Minimbah, New South Wales, seven miles up the Coolongolook River from Forster and north of Balmain. Minimbah means in Birripi language "Home of the Teacher" and his traditional country encompassed Taree, Forster and the Great Lakes area of the Wang Wauk and Coolonglook rivers on the North Coast. He was a child of a bicultural marriage with his mother coming from the coal fields of Yorkshire, England. His paternal dreaming was the Eagle, although he described himself as a Magpie - half black, half white. He was also exposed to Aboriginal mission life at Purfleet and Forster through the 1930s and early 1940s and spent time as a 14- and 15-year-old in Grafton Correctional Centre. Even with this background, Syron told the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission on 15 November 1992:
I have no mortgage on being dispossessed or having a tough life. We've all had it. Every Aboriginal person I know of in my generation has had one hell of a time. Nobody has a mortgage on that. We've all been through it. Our obligation, our mandate, as artists is to communicate with our people first.

Brian Syron died of leukaemia on 14 October 1993 in his Eora country birthplace.

Theatrical career

Syron began his artistic career in 1960 at the Ensemble Theatre, Kirribilli, Sydney under the guidance of New York trained American actor/director and esteemed teacher of the Strasberg Method, the late Hayes Gordon. His fellow students included Jack Thompson, Clarissa Kaye Mason, Reg Livermore and John Ewing. Syron always believed that it was Gordon who gave him the dream to be part of the theatre by allowing him to experiment, expand and create.
Wishing to travel overseas, Syron was forced to deny that he was Indigenous in order to obtain an Australian passport. This was because Indigenous Australians were not allowed to have passports. Syron left Australia in 1961 to work in Europe as a male model with Dior, Cardin and Balenciaga. In the Fall of 1961, he moved to New York living initially on Fifth Avenue with one of Australia's first supermodels, Pauline Kiernan, and later in a small walk up when he became an acting student again. In September 1961, he was accepted as a student with the Stella Adler Studio, where he studied for the next 18 months with fellow students Robert De Niro, Gloria Graham, Pamela Tiffen, Warren Beatty and Peter Bogdanovich. Then followed two years of study under various teachers including Olympia Dukakis, Sanford Meisner, William Bell and Rose Ingram while continuing study with Adler. As a result of this 3½ years of training, Syron became the first Australian, indigenous or non-indigenous, to study with Stella Adler and one of the few Australians to have learned the Stanislavsky drama technique from so close to the source – "the source was almost pure - only one place removed."
Completing his American training, he spent 12 months in Britain studying with Cicily Berry as well as Doreen Cannon, head of acting, at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art before returning to New York. There, he co-founded a theatre company based around the Caffè Lena in Saratoga Springs, upstate New York while touring as a director with the Boston/Herald Travellers Shakespeare Company with such actors as Spalding Gray and Clara Duff-McCormack and doing stints as a teacher for Adler's studio. In 1965, Mrs. Hollister Rexford Shause donated the Caffè Lena theatre company on the Mohawk River near Schenectady to build a theatre complex. Following this donation, Syron returned to New York, where he worked as an actor on various American Shakespeares festivals, toured through the Appalachian Mountains and worked with the Kentucky Shakespeare Festival in Louisville, Kentucky, Cincinnati In the Park, as well as productions in Ohio, New Jersey and Paducah, Kentucky.
As well as touring, he worked as an actor with the Establishment Theatre Company for producers Sybill Burton Christopher, Joseph E. Levine, Ivor David Balding, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. He worked for The New Theatre on 53rd and 3rd and various productions including the revue The Mad Show.
In the last months of 1967 and the first of 1968 Syron toured the Southern states of America playing in Atlanta, Georgia; Roanoke, Virginia; Nashville, Tennessee and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina and from these tours he was to say

"came the finalisation of my black politicisation. No black person travelling through these States during this period of peace marches, race riots and assassination could have remained untouched and I had to go home."

Syron returned to Perth, Western Australia following the 1967 referendum which finally allowed him to freely move through his country without having to have a Permission to Leave Pass to let him go about his business. In Perth, he directed at Arnie Neeme's The Playhouse, Perth. He had hardly time to settle into Perth before he was invited to return to Sydney and direct Fortune and Men's Eyes at his old alma mater the Ensemble Theatre, Kirribilli for which he received the Inaugural Drama Critics Award for Best Production and his leading man Max Phipps received Best Actor for his role of "Queenie".
On his return from the United States in late 1970, Syron was invited to join Sydney's Old Tote Theatre by Professor Robert Quentin, Head of Drama at the University of New South Wales, and Robin Lovejoy, Artistic Director. He was the first Indigenous Australia to work as a director in the mainstream Australian theatre industry and in 1972 was appointed Theatre Consultant for the Aboriginal Arts Board of the inaugural Australia Council for the Arts which Board was headed for the first time by an indigenous person, Wanjuk Marika.
The following year, 1973, Syron co-founded the Australian National Playwrights Conference with Katharine Brisbane. Lloyd Richards, Head of Acting at Yale University and Artistic Director of the American National Playwrights Conference wrote to the Aboriginal Unit of Australia Council in September 1993
I have been asked to comment on Brian Syron whom I have not heard of in many years. I am nonetheless not hesitant to do so because his contribution to the theatre and to his people had by the late 70s been so significant that he might have been considered for award by then. The National Playwrights Conference of Australia exists because Brian Syron visited the National Playwrights Conference in Waterford Conn. and recognised it as an important idea for Australia and he went back to champion the possibility. Others visited and the rest is history."

Syron returned to the theatre again in 1976 with his direction of Dimboola in Newcastle, New South Wales as well as at Bonapartes Theatre Restaurant, Kings Cross, Sydney where his stage production ran continuously for the next two years and four months with many cast changes during that time. He followed "Dimboola" with a production of the American play Falling Apart at the New Theatre, Newtown, Sydney and in 1978 he played the role of "The Actor" in Livieu Cieleu's production of Maxim Gorky's The Lower Depths which ran for six weeks at the Sydney Opera House. In this same year, he opened The New Group Theatre at the All Nations Club, Kings Cross, Sydney where he directed among other productions A Tribute to Tennessee Williams before the ongoing costs of keeping an independent theatre going forced Syron to close after 12 months.
Syron co-founded the Aboriginal Theatre Company in 1981 with Robert Merritt, scriptwriter/playwright/director and, in conjunction with the Aboriginal Educational Unit of TAFE, was the founder of the Eora Arts Centre, Redfern, Sydney. The first production of the ATC was Merritt's play The Cake Man which toured under Syron's direction, to the 1982 World Theatre Festival in Denver, Colorado where the play received a tremendous audience response. Following this success, the play then toured various colleges around the United States. Returning to Australia, Syron directed a season of The Cake Man at the Universal Theatre in Fitzroy, Melbourne after which it was funded by Australian federal government's Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs to play at the 1983 Warana - Commonwealth Arts Festival, Brisbane in Queensland where it was performed at the Edward Street Theatre.
In January 1987, Syron founded the National Black Playwrights Conference, which was held at the Australian National University, Canberra. In an interview with Angela Bennie, Australia's leading Indigenous actress Justine Saunders commented :
It was Brian Syron, in fact, who was the instigator not only of the first National Black Playwrights Conference but the National Playwrights Conference. Syron always said our culture is an oral one, it comes through our painting, through our singing, through our stories that's how we pass down our laws, that's how we have passed down our history for 60,000 years

During the conference, the delegates awarded Syron the 1987 Inaugural Harold Blair Award for his Lifetime Achievements in the Performing Arts, which brought with it the additional honor of the title "Elder". As a result of the first NBPC, Syron proposed and co-founded the Aboriginal National Theatre Trust with headquarters in King Street, Newtown under Administrator, scriptwriter Vivian Walker, Chair, actor Lydia Miller and directors Justine Saunders, Rhoda Roberts, Lillian Crombie and Syron. ANTT closed in 1991 following the very early death of Vivian Walker.
At the second NBPC held in 1988 Syron directed a video of Jimmy Chi's stage musical Bran Nue Dae produced by Chi who travelled from Broome in Western Australia to Macquarie University at North Ryde, Sydney to take part in the event.
Syron carried out a two-week workshop, a stage reading, plus a production in 1991 at the Belvoir Street Theatre, Redfern, Sydney of Mudrooroo Narogin's "courageous and brave new play" "The Aboriginal Demonstrators Confront the Declaration of the Australian Republic on 26 January 2001 with the Production of Der Auftrag by Heiner Muller" and starring Justine Saunders, Michael Watson, David Kennedy, Pamela Young, Ray Kelly and Graham Cooper. The play and the production are also the subject of Mudrooroo Narogin's book The Mudrooroo/Muller Project - A Theatrical Casebook, with a chapter by Syron and edited by Gerhard Fischer in collaboration with leading indigenous academic Paul Behrendt and Syron.

Theatre credits - directing

U.S.A. - 1960s
Australia - 1960s
1970s
1990s
Theatre Credits - Acting
U.S.A. - 1960s
Australia - 1970s
Following the success of "Fortune", Syron was approached by Sydney drama professionals to set up the Actors Master Class for those interested in studying the Stanislavsky/Adler technique and for which Syron had applied to his award-winning production. Following on the success of the Master Class, Syron was requested to introduce an Intermediate classes and then a Beginners class, both of limited numbers. The School was kept open on an ad hoc basis over the next 23 years and moved many times between 1969 and 1992.
In 1969 Syron taught the first group of urban Aboriginal actors to every study Stanislavsky or acting from an Indigenous perspective. The classes were held at the Foundation of Aboriginal Affairs, George Street, Sydney CBD and the actors included political and cultural historian/actor Denis Walker and actor/director/historian Gary Foley. The situation was still so bad that at the end of each evening the actors had to be ferried back by taxi to their homes in Redfern about 10 minutes walk away to avoid arrest by the police.
He followed this in the early 1972 with workshops and acting classes held at the Black Theatre Arts & Cultural Centre, Cope Street, Redfern where, as Artistic Director, he taught such future Indigenous luminaries as Jack Davis, Hyllus Maris, Lester Bostock, Maureen Watson and Gerry Bostock.
In 1973, as a foundation member of the Peter Summerton Foundation, Syron organised with his mentor Stella Adler to travel to Australia and conduct a series of Master Classes for people from all areas of the Australian entertainment industries. This was the only time Ms. Adler travelled to Australia. As a result of these classes, Syron instigated The Artists' Group Theatre with the first workshops being held in the sculpture studio of Ron Robertson-Swann before moving to The Stables, Kings Cross. During this year he was invited to teach drama to The Resurgent Society inmates of Parramatta Gaol. He accepted the offer and was involved with the Society for the next 12 months. His group included playwrights Jim McNeil and Robin Thurston and Syron is believed to be the first drama teacher to work in the prison system of New South Wales.
At the end of 1974 Syron returned to Los Angeles to take up a Stella Adler's invitation to work at the Stella Adler Los Angeles Acting Studio on Hollywood Boulevard with such students as John Barrymore Jr., John Saxon, Susan Clark and Peter Brown.
Leading Indigenous academic and Harvard University, USA graduate, Dr Roberta Sykes set up the Black Women's Action Group in 1985 with Syron as the Honorary Secretary and foundation member joining other Indigenous and non Indigenous Australians in the support of the educational advancement of Indigenous women in their pursuit of academic success at leading international universities.
Over the period 1986–1987 Syron became the first Indigenous Australian to lecture at the Australian Film TV & Radio School when he gave a series of Master Classes covering "The Textual Analysis and Techniques of Acting" for Final Year AFTRS students in the Directors Course. In Australia's Bi-Centennial Year, 1988, Syron, as representative of actors and the Aboriginal National Theatre Trust, was invited back to AFTRS as a Guest Lecturer for the "Writing '88" Course along with Fay Nelson, Tjungkarta "Nosepeg" Tjupurrula and Harper Morris Tyungerrayi.

Founder / Foundation member

Syron was employed as Children's Dialogue Coach on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation ABC-TVs award-winning television production Seven Little Australians a 10 × 30 minute series adapted from the Ethel Turner novel of the same name. In 1976 Syron was cast as Sweet William in the television adaptation of the Robert Merritt play The Cake Man. Almost immediately after this production Syron was cast as Ray in "Ray's Story" a one-hour episode of Pig in a Poke a 5 × 1 hour series screened on ABC-TV starring Justine Saunders, Athol Compton, Gary Foley and Paul Coe and described as the first modern urban Aboriginal drama screened on Australian television. Syron then played the leading role of "The Wife Abuser" in director Stephen Wallace's telemovie Women Who Kill which screened on ATN Channel 9.
In 1987 Syron was executive producer of the documentary-drama film production Karbara: First Born, directed and produced by Richard Guthrie, during and following the 1987 Australian National Playwrights Conference. The film featured Lydia Miller and Ernie Dingo and screened at the Sydney Film Festival in 1987 and on ABC-TV.
Syron and Justine Saunders were co-presenters of the ABC-TV Aboriginal entertainment series The First Australians. This series of 18 × 1 hour programs featured leading Aboriginals in the fields of performance, music and art and presented Indigenous Australian political and commercial leaders in discussions on various topics important to Indigenous Australians. In September 1988 Syron became the first Aboriginal producer at ABC-TV when he was appointed to the position of Producer - Aboriginal Programs Unit.
"The appointment of Brian Syron by the ABC as producer of its new Aboriginal Programs Unit could very well precipitate further muttering and grumbling...is it just another Bi Centennial cringe and guilt or is there a need and a reason for an Aboriginal; Unit... the unification of culture is the only way to ensure their survival"

Television
Production
Acting
In 1970 Syron left Australia for the USA where he took up a position as Attachment / Assistant on the feature film What's Up Doc? directed by Peter Bogdanovich. Syron's next film project was the short film Jeremy and Teapot starring Patrick Thompson as Jeremy and Syron as Teapot with the Narrator Jack Thompson, shot on location at Thompson's property at Upper Bo Bo, via Ulong, northern New South Wales. The film went on to win Best Film, 1982 Women's International Film/Video Festival, Tucson, Arizona, USA..
Syron was employed on director Peter Weir's feature film The Last Wave as Consultant and Aboriginal Liaison with Gulpilil and Nandijiwarra Amagula, Walter Amagula, Roy Bara, Cedric Latara, Morris Latara and Athol Compton.
The Australian Film Commission awarded Syron a grant in 1980 for his script Australian Aboriginal Achievers, which was a biographical documentary recounting the achievements of seven leading Aboriginal achievers: actor/historian Gary Foley, potter Thancoupie, artist Jean Jimmi, bureaucrat Charles Perkins, academic Miriam Rose Ungunmeer-Bauman and artists Jimmy Bienderry and Stumpy Martin Jempijimpa. The script never received production funding and was later used as the basis for the Clare Dunn book People Under the Skin - An Irish Immigrant's Experience of Aboriginal Australia.
In 1981, Syron played a small role of "The Neighbour" in The City's Edge ", co-written by Robert Merritt the first Australian Indigenous scriptwriter of a feature film and the Nightclub Manager in Coolangatta Gold.
Backlash directed and produced by Bill Bennett featured Lydia Miller with Syron in the role of The Executioner or Kadachi Man. Syron and the lead actors were the co-writers of this production although they were uncredited by Bennett. The script improvisation by the actors is confirmed by Encore

"Bill Bennett's "Backlash", for instance, is a film for which the principals improvised their dialogue...in this his latest effort he tested this technique to its limit"

Syron and Rosalie Kunoth-Monks were employed as Co-Aboriginal Consultants on the television production Naked Under Capricorn directed by Rob Stewart, produced by Syron's brother-in-law Ray Alchin and starring Nigel Havers.
From 1990 to 1992 Syron directed the first feature film by an Indigenous Australia Jindalee Lady and is recognised as being the first First Nations director of a feature film. Dr Lowitja O'Donoghue, Chair of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission wrote saying
Mr Syron is held in high esteem by both indigenous and non indigenous Australians for his work as our first indigenous feature film director..He has made a valuable contribution to indigenous art in this country and has been a strong and articulate advocate in the movement to raise and promote the status of indigenous theatre and film as an integral part of Australia's cultural heritage"

In August 1992 Jindalee Lady was invited to screen at the 1992 inaugural Brisbane International Film Festival as part of the first Charles Chauvel Tribute which was followed by a debate between Indigenous filmmaker Syron and three non Indigenous filmmakers concerning the invisibility of Indigenous above-the-line personnel. In September 1992 Jindalee Lady was invited to "Dreamspeakers" International Film & Arts Festival, Edmonton, Canada where it was the only and the first feature film to be directed by a First Nations person and was awarded Best Feature Film at the Festival. Following this screening Jindalee Lady was accepted and nominated for the East West Award - Best Film at the 1992 Hawaii International Film Festival, Hawaii where Syron gave a paper The Making of an Indigenous Feature Film at the opening of the Festival and the screening of Jindalee Lady. Syron was joined by leading lady Lydia Miller and Musical Director / Composer Bart Willoughby at the HIFF.
Briann Kearney and Syron applied in a joint application for a Literary Fellowship from Australia Council the federal Arts organisation and were awarded $20,000 to co-write "Kicking Down the Doors - a History of Indigenous Filmmaking from 1968 - 1993 including non Indigenous films for and about Indigenous people" based on research collected by Syron for his submission to the 1992 HREOC submission.
Filmography
Production
Acting