Greg Burchall

KER-THWAAAAAANGANGANG. The football that hit the tin sign in front of the old bluestone church had seen better days. It was one of those team-color jobs that was losing its panels, flap-flap-flapping as it punt-spiralled back into play.

It was kick-to-kick, but not in an entirely traditional formation. The players were everywhere, because the ball could go anywhere.

The kicks were wild, but delivered with fierce pleasure and indomitable concentration. This is the Back to Back Theatre Company at play.

Later, after the break, back inside the hall, the intensity and drama of the company quickly makes you forget the sunny footy day outside.

Joe and Mary, a mentally disabled couple who have spent a lot of time together, dream of getting married and having children. Their parents are appalled: ``You can't look after yourself, let alone each other, let alone a baby.'' There is pulling and pushing and yelling. Then Mary's mother tells her: ``You can't have babies anyway, I had you sterilised years ago.''

There are many such anecdotal episodes in Back to Back's latest show, `Voices of Desire'. For many of the members of Australia's only professional intellectualy disabled theatre company, they are very personal stories.

It's not so easy to have someone sterilised without their consent these days, says the company's administrator, Robyn Winslow, but there is one member of the company whose parents' still want to have the operation performed.

Most of us grow up with notions of love and marriage and parenthood, says Winslow, but some people are ``protected'' from such thoughts.

``It's kind of assuming that just because someone's intellectual development stopped at age three, the rest of their development stopped then too -apart from physically, of course.

``That's a whole different issue, to say someone has a mental age of three, when they have got 37 years of life experience. There's no simple statement to make about it.

``A child does have the right to be brought up in a safe environment.

But if you're going to say there are certain types of people who shouldn't be allowed to have babies - and I don't think we should be saying that -then there's no reason to just stop and start with disabled people.

``One concern is passing on disabled genes - what about criminal genes or violent genes?'' `Voices of Desire' explores the premise that the quest for love is everyone's right.

Since growing out of a project at Geelong's Corilong Centre seven years ago, Back to Back has taken its provocative and often confronting dramas to schools, theatres and churches around the country.

The company has just returned from Brussels, where it performed `Voices' at the International Very Special Arts Festival -``a very patronising name,'' says Winslow, ``but it is an American organisation'' - before 10,000 delegates from 50 countries. Yesterday the company filmed a guest spot on TV's `Neighbors'.

``We have a unique and long process to devise our shows,'' understates `Voices' director Barry Kay. ``We have people to help us put them together, to structure them, but we don't use writers because, to me, we really don't need them. There's nothing we need to create.

``We have people here who have the stories. That's why they want to be actors. That's the key. What they may lack in finesse and craft as actors, they make up for - having something to say and - and in bloody wanting to be actors.''

Other theatre companies have used intellectually disabled actors, but Kay says a lot of them think they are doing the actors a favor, whereas the opposite is true.

``They are doing us a favor - no question,'' he says. ``What's the purpose of imposing your aesthetic on others? To me, the whole point of having a permanent company of actors is to have them bring a new aesthetic to what your notions of art and theatre are. And, in this case, what you regard as what the intellectually disabled can do. And they will often come up with something you never thought of.''

To a great extent, the company is made up of people who are being allowed to express themselves for the first time. Always spoken for, always having things done for them, they are blooming in emotional and physical freedom.

Mark, who reluctantly shed his ever-present Fitzroy footy jumper to have audiences in hysterics in the 1992 Fringe Short Works season, has become a brilliant physical clown.

He finds it hard to articulate but can tell you anything you want to know with his body. In his first show, he tried for months to master the three steps necessary for the narrative, but now he's building human pyramids, walking around on someone else's shoulders; he's now competing as a special Olympian and has a devastating Elvis impersonation.

Rita's stakes are always high. She has a great tragic capacity - loves melodrama, not soap opera - and has gleaned Australia Council funding for her intense work.

Sonia is full of energy and passion, after years of being locked in her room whenever she tried to ``express herself''. She can hold a mannequin-state ``frozen moment'' for up to 20 minutes; it seriously infuriates those who have told her to stop ``showing off''.

The ``non-disabled'' members, apart from Robyn Winslow and Barry Kay, who have to harness all this energy and history into theatre, include, on `Voices', opera singer Wendy Grose and actor Guy Hooper (who plays the love-lorn Joe).

Don't expect Williamson or Nowra, no great long talk-scenes, but don't make concessions, either. A disability culture may create a lobby power, but Back to Back would rather not be part of it. It would rather be known as a professional theatre company that does a particular kind of work.

Back to Back Theatre will perform `Voices of Desire' at the Napier Street Theatre, tonight and tomorrow night. For information, call 6999270.