David Milroy’s Windmill Baby is already an Australian classic. First performed in Perth in 2005 it has since played all over the world – but never in Sydney. Now, Kylie Farmer (last seen burning the floor in The Sapphires) makes her directorial debut with a new production Downstairs.

Maymay has come back to the pastoral station she worked on as a domestic half a century ago. As she beavers away around the old washing line, she recalls the season of love and revenge which swept through and turned this dusty collection of bungalows into the scene of an achingly beautiful tragedy.

Windmill Baby is the story of Black Australians in the service of White Australia. It’s also an ancient tale of unexpected love and sudden ruination. Milroy’s wily humour and Maymay’s magnificent forebearance make Windmill Baby an act of grace. It finds meaning in a useless act of violence, and carries the meaning on in spite of the blunting powers of time and the wilful failures of the national memory.

And most wonderfully of all, Windmill Baby is that rare thing: a real love story.