Summary

Newspaper clipping featuring a photograph of Sylvia with two white women at a special performance of 'Adam's Rib'. Miss Sylvia Boys is listed as a helper to the woman organising the evening. It is unclear when this photo was taken or what Sylvia's role was, but she was a performer and worked with the Eoan Opera Group from 1966 to 1969.

Sylvia Boyes (a South African-born orphan) and Lindsay Motherwell (a Melbourne-born drummer) met in Cape Town, South Africa in 1967 through their theatre connections. They fell in love but due to apartheid laws were forced to leave South Africa to marry in London. They subsequently relocated permanently to Melbourne in 1970.

Physical Description

Newspaper clipping of a photo of three women, two white and one black. The caption is "SPECIAL PERFORMANCE of 'Adam's Rib,' followed by a supper party with Malay dishes, organized by Mrs. Marcelle Kooy (centre) at the Labia Theatre. Two of her helpers were Miss Barbara Strauss (left) and Miss Sylvia Boys (sic). Proceeds of the evening go to the Society for the Protection of Child Life."

Significance

Statement of Historical Significance:
This collection provides a significant opportunity to represent political and personal freedom as a motivation for migrating to Australia within the international context of both apartheid in South Africa and the end of the White Australia policy in Australia. The personal narrative is well documented and the objects provide a material way to follow the lives of both Lindsay and Sylvia, both separately and where they coincide in South Africa and onwards together to Melbourne. While this is ultimately a love story, it plays out through the collection against the backdrop of apartheid South Africa, sixties London and an increasingly multicultural Australia.

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