(Warning: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers should be aware that this document/blog may contain images and names of people who have since passed away)
No-one can underestimate the importance that the Awakening sequence in the Opening Ceremony of the Sydney Olympic Games had on people in Australia and overseas. The indigenous artistic directors of the sequence, Rhoda Roberts Stephen Page and David Page along with the Non-Indigenous director of the sequence, David Atkins, took almost three years to network and negotiate ownership, cultural context and cultural value with hundreds of clans and individuals. This culminated in three months of intricate rehearsals before the event.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2TZ8cw-e24
Extra insight into the significance of this event is examined in the 2020 documentary on Bangara Dance Theatre Firestarter - The Story of Bangara. As David Page says in this documentary, "We wanted to be be diverse because we are complex." Over 500 Yolngu, 500 Torres Strait Islanders peoples participated and people were represented from over 200 different language groups and nations.
The final piece, which was created using over 1200 indigenous performers (including 350 women performers from central desert homelands) in front of over 110,000 people in the Sydney Olympic Stadium (and screens outside the venue) and an estimated viewing audience of 3.7 billion was the largest witnessing of Australian Indigenous ceremonies ever. A ceremonial design was used for the performance layout, costuming, body decoration and many of the overall movement patterns displayed. Much of the costuming, body decoration and ornamentation was symbolically significant to each clan represented but some elements such as the metallic ochre were added in more contemporary dance, drama and storytelling segments.
The sequence started with the songman Djakapurra calling people to listen to the sounds of the earth and encouraging a young singer (played by non-indigenous Australian singer Nikki Webster) to understand the origins of where the land came from. She is surrounded by images of the sea and land, including huge jellyfish. She is guided by Yolngu elder Munyarryun (carrying a sacred dillybag touch over many generations with many people and stories around his neck)
The sequence started with the songman Djakapurra calling people to listen to the sounds of the earth and encouraging a young singer (played by non-indigenous Australian singer Nikki Webster) to understand the origins of where the land came from. She is surrounded by images of the sea and land, including huge jellyfish. She is guided by Yolngu elder Munyarryun (carrying a sacred dillybag touch over many generations with many people and stories around his neck)
Then people from all around the world were welcomed to the land and more specifically the ancestral lands of the Bidjigal peoples (the land on which the ceremony took place). A koorobori (corroboree) was then danced and sung using the ancient Seven Emu Sisters ceremony which is traditionally used to prepare the people and the place for unity. Hundreds of young indigenous people then came into a circle to listen to and witness a ceremony. They formed the head of the symbolic shape of an indigenous figure – a representation of the form of a head from part of the gwion gwion or Bradshaw Cave Dancers paintings. White earth was then thrown into the air to signal that unity and rebirth had started.
The Australian aboriginal flag was then revealed and individual songs and dance sequences saw the representations of Arnhem Land clans who formed the arms of the symbolic cave painting figure. A seashell horn was then blown as a rhythmic dance signaled the arrival of various Torres Strait Islander clans who then created the body of the figure. The Torres Strait Islander flag was then revealed. Parts of this segment of the ceremony also symbolized the arrival of the Macassan traders.
A Red Kangaroo song and dance then was enacted and the Koorie people of NSW (and more specifically the Bidjigal people on whose land the ceremony took place) were welcomed and thanked. A traditional smoking ceremony then cleansed the space. The various spirits of the land were then awakened. Mimi dance ceremonies then were enacted by stilt walkers. Images of the Wanjina spirit then appeared, acting as a backdrop for the coming of the monsoonal rains and the life after the rain. The sequence ended with the songman or Djakapurra and the Wanjina ancestral spirit, throwing a lightning stick blot down to symbolize cleansing and rejuvenation of the earth.
The Awakening sequence in the Opening Ceremony of the Sydney Olympic Games presented indigenous Australian cultures to Australia and to the world. It signalled a unification of indigenous cultures past and present. Its organisation and artistic production by Rhoda Roberts and Stephen Page also acts as a model for successful and respectful networking and negotiation of cultural ownership and context which heralded a new age for indigenous Australian culture and indigenous Australian drama. Both Roberts and page were pressured from many sides. Many activists wanted them to boycott the ceremony but both saw it as an important platform for Indigenous Australian voices, stories and reconciliation.
Medea and Jason from the 2005 Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne Production.
In 2000, Wesley Enoch decided to adapt Euripides’ classic Greek Tragedy of Medea, transposing it into an Indigenous Australian setting creating his powerful epic Indigenous Greek Tragedy drama Black Medea.
In the play, Medea is a young Indigenous woman and the outback Australian setting helps to both emphasize the original themes of identity, honour, love, loyalty and belonging evident in Euripides’ classic, while also confronting complex modern issues of cultural inheritance, dispossession, violence and betrayal.
The play’s rich language oscillates between realist dialogue and complex verse drama making the play one of the great triumphs of Australian drama in the early 21st Century. Originally staged and directed by Wesley Enoch at the Sydney Theatre Company at the Wharf 2 Theatre in Sydney, the original production included veteran actress Justine Saunders as the Chorus, Tessa Rose as Medea and Nathan Ramsay as Jason. The play also had a very successful revival production in 2005 directed also by Wesley Enoch at the Malthouse Theatre Melbourne and Belvoir St Theatre in Sydney.
“ MEDEA’S BATTLE CRY
Medea: I am not frightened of you. I have faced everything I fear and defeated it. You think you are a match for me? The day has finally come… and today… I vanquish you. Today… Jason and I will no longer run. And you will feel the sharpened edge of a mother’s love and a wife’s loyalty.”
(Enoch 2009:61)
A pivotal moment in early 21st Century indigenous drama was the Ilbigerri Theatre Company's season of six indigenous plays in 2002. The Artistic Director of this ‘Blak Inside’ season was Rachael Maza Long who drew together a wide range of indigenous plays, playwrights and performers including John Harding's Enuff, Tammy Anderson's I Don't Wanna Play House, Tracey Rigney's Belonging, Maryanne Sam's Casting Doubts, Jadah Milroy's Crow Fire and Richard Frankland's Conversations with the Dead. This season of plays dealing with a diverse range of indigenous issues such as identity, belonging, racial prejudice and cultural differences cemented the work of the Ilbigerri Theatre as being pivotal to Australian theatre’s progress through into the 21st Century.
At the Adelaide Fringe Festival Centre at the Adelaide Festival in 2002, Ningali Lawford and Vietnamese comedian Hung Le created a multi-cultural comedy piece entitled Black and Tran in which they explored and exchanged stories and experiences about being culturally different in a mono-cultural Australia. This collaborative performance used satire, parody and black comedy to explore racism, the Stolen Generation, refugees, poverty and the funny side to being the ‘other’ in Australian society.
Autobiography is a strong facet of much indigenous drama. The notion of ownership of stories is one that is central to Indigenous dramaturgy as indicated through Jack Davis’ insistence on using members of the Moore River Settlement community to help tell their story in his plays. This tradition is strong in indigenous drama and in 2003, George Rrurrambu, famous as the front man of the legendary indigenous Warumpi Band branched into theatre with his autobiographical one-man show called Nerrpu. The show was popular and combined music, drama and storytelling while dealing with issues of modern indigenous identity and sense of place.
The political environment of the early 21st century, especially the entrenchment of a Liberal/National Coalition in Federal leadership meant the possibility of an apology to indigenous people and the advancement of land rights claims were at a standstill during this period. Katherine Thomson’s critically acclaimed play and winner of the 2003 Rodney Seaborn Playwright’s Award, Wonderlands was a well crafted play which explored this political context through juxtaposing the story of Alice, a white station owner in 1931 and her discussions with her indigenous head stockman, Jim, about the ownership of the property Ambertrue, with the modern story of Alice’s great nephew Lon who is faced with a native title claim being made on Ambertrue in the present day. The production of this play showed that modern playwrights and audiences are prepared in the theatre to examine closely issues that were being ignored on the larger political stage.
The success of Wesley Enoch’s work at Kooemba Jdarra Theatre Company opened many opportunities for him to develop a range of works with a range of indigenous artists. Around 2003, he started to develop ideas for a piece of drama which used metaphoric elements of indigenous storytelling combined with strong dramatic characters.
“Let this table be a home for me. Let it be a home for all the lost and the hungry. May all my children and my children's children eat at this table.”
Enoch from The Story of the Miracles at Cookie’s Table
The Story of the Miracles at Cookie’s Table is a wonderfully optimistic and poetic piece of theatre which tells a story which crosses time and generations. The story centres around a tree and the table it has come to form. On one level, a mother and her son fight for ownership of a table. What is revealed is that in the 1870’s, a girl was born under a tree (her ‘birth tree’ which was chosen to give her strength and wisdom she would need for the future). The tree is cut down and the woman follows it into the ‘white’ man’s world where she works as a cook for a big house on an island. Her ‘birth tree’ becomes a kitchen table which becomes the centre for the passing down of experiences and stories, a centerpiece for the carving out of a tradition of family stories. This metaphor is strongly extended by the modern context of the fight for ownership by a young man and his mother for ownership of the table. Questions of cultural inheritance and ownership of stories and sense of place are strongly emphasized by this important piece of drama.
The diversity of styles, subject matter and themes of Indigenous drama set during the 1990’s continued into the 21st Century. Accolades were heaped on The Sapphires as the Australia Council for the Arts honored it as Best New Australian Drama of 2005. The Sapphires by actor and playwright Tony Briggs also won the Helpmann Award for Best Play. The Sapphires is a play with music, set in Vietnam in the 1960’s and it tells the story of Briggs' mother and aunts, a group of four talented Aboriginal singers who left Australia to entertain troops during the Vietnam War.
The play is a magical story told with generosity, humour, love and music. The original production was directed by Wesley Enoch for the Company B of the Melbourne Theatre Company and starred Deborah Mailman, Rachael Maza Long, Lisa Flanagan and Ursula Yovich, The Sapphires played to packed houses in Sydney and Melbourne, becoming the highest grossing indigenous drama since Bran Nue Dae. In 2012, a successful film version of the play was released internationally to great critical acclaim.
2007 was a gritty year for indigenous drama when it showed that indigenous playwrights and performers would not back away from dealing with challenging subject matter and powerful performances. Wayne Blair has often been considered one of the most versatile and multi-skilled practitioners of Australian theatre in the early 21st century. In 2007, he co-starred in and directed Adly Guirgis’ play Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train which opened at Sydney’s Belvoir Street Theatre. The play is set in a lock down section of a tough American prison, Ricker’s Island Prison in New York. The action of the play centres around exchanges between Lucius Jenkins (a serial killer) and Angel (a born again Christian who shot a cult leader who had enticed a friend of his into his cult). During the course of the play Angel’s predicament turns more serious when the shot cult leader dies of his injuries after complications in hospital. Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train is a complex play which deals with notions of justice, morality and notions of the individual Vs society.
The fluency and frequency with which indigenous stories have been adapted across mediums from novels to plays and dance pieces to plays and from plays to films shows the adaptability of indigenous artists to different mediums and modes of storytelling. 2007 saw that adaptation of Parramatta Girls to the stage in Sydney at the Belvoir Street Theatre.
The traumatic stories of former inmates of the Parramatta Girls Home were adapted to the stage in a gritty production which was originally directed by Wesley Enoch and starred Leah Purcell, Lisa Flanagan and Roxanne McDonald.
Meanwhile in Melbourne in 2007, Chopped Liver by the Ilbijerri Theatre Company put on a season of the group-devised production which dealt with the serious issue of Hepatitis C. Following in the tradition of many companies and indigenous plays like davis’ Kullark, Ilbijerri made a commitment to make this play part of their Theatre-in Education program. Chopped Liver toured schools, government institutions and country areas in Victoria and South Australia including a memorable performance at the Port Augusta Jail.
The Black Swan Theatre Company mounted a series of productions in 2008 including Jandamarra. The premiere season of Jandamarra was staged at the Perth International Arts Festival in February 2008. Jandamarra is a seminal indigenous drama from a number of standpoints. It marks the beginning of a period in indigenous drama when key historical and cultural indigenous figures are portrayed in plays. It also saw the successful adaptation of material from a novel and a television documentary into a stage play.
The other interesting aspect of this play’s development process was its use of traditional custodians of Jandamarra’s story to develop and translate parts of his story. Jandamarra (also spelt Tjandamurra) was a Bunuba man who led an armed revolt against European settlement in Western Australia in the Kimberly region near Fitzroy Crossing. Jandamarra initially worked as an indigenous tracker for the police force tracking down and capturing tribesmen who speared or killed sheep or livestock. Eventually, Jandamarra’s tribal loyalties took the better of him and he gunned down policemen and started to set indigenous prisoners free. Jandamarra’s life had been the subject of Ion Idriess’ 1952 novel Outlaws of the Leopold, Mudrooroo’s 1972 novel Long Live Sandawarra and the 2005/2006 non-fiction history book by Howard Pedersen Jandamarra and the Bunuba Resistance.
The other interesting aspect of this play’s development process was its use of traditional custodians of Jandamarra’s story to develop and translate parts of his story. Jandamarra (also spelt Tjandamurra) was a Bunuba man who led an armed revolt against European settlement in Western Australia in the Kimberly region near Fitzroy Crossing. Jandamarra initially worked as an indigenous tracker for the police force tracking down and capturing tribesmen who speared or killed sheep or livestock. Eventually, Jandamarra’s tribal loyalties took the better of him and he gunned down policemen and started to set indigenous prisoners free. Jandamarra’s life had been the subject of Ion Idriess’ 1952 novel Outlaws of the Leopold, Mudrooroo’s 1972 novel Long Live Sandawarra and the 2005/2006 non-fiction history book by Howard Pedersen Jandamarra and the Bunuba Resistance.
In 2005, the Black Swan State Theatre Company commissioned Bunuba Films to adapt to the theatre, an existing 1994 documentary film script about Jandamarra. This film script was written by Steve Hawke collaborating with the Bunuba people who were custodians of the story. Steve Hawke and Bunuba Films wanted to maximize and utilize the creative and personal input of the Bunuba people in the development and production of the play. Black Swan embraced this philosophy fully and even formalized this process through upgrading licensing agreements to formal Co-Production Agreements.
Early in the development process, the decision was made to stage the parts of the play which take place in the Bunuba world in the Bunuba language. This shaped the play and was crucial to the process of its development. The writer worked closely with four Bunuba women creating initially a Bunuba version with 'back translations' that the audience would eventually see performed with surtitles. Critical to the play was the use of Indigenous dramaturgy and dramaturgical processes which attempted to remain true and genuine to the Bunuba world and characters and Bunuba custodians to the story. This along with the moving nature of the story of Jandamarra, made this play and this production, a crucial turning point in Australian Indigenous drama and Australian Indigenous dramaturgy.
2007 saw the establishment of Moogahlin Performing Arts, another Indigenous Australian theatre company which was founded on the lands of the Gadigal nation in Redfern NSW. A group of Australian First Nation educators, artists and community workers including Bunuba man Frederick Copperwaite, Murriwarri woman Lily Shearer, and Biripai woman Liza-Mare Syron established the company at the request of the late Kevin Smith who wished to bring performing arts back to the community of Redfern, in honour of the founding members of the National Black Theatre.
Early in the development process, the decision was made to stage the parts of the play which take place in the Bunuba world in the Bunuba language. This shaped the play and was crucial to the process of its development. The writer worked closely with four Bunuba women creating initially a Bunuba version with 'back translations' that the audience would eventually see performed with surtitles. Critical to the play was the use of Indigenous dramaturgy and dramaturgical processes which attempted to remain true and genuine to the Bunuba world and characters and Bunuba custodians to the story. This along with the moving nature of the story of Jandamarra, made this play and this production, a crucial turning point in Australian Indigenous drama and Australian Indigenous dramaturgy.
2007 saw the establishment of Moogahlin Performing Arts, another Indigenous Australian theatre company which was founded on the lands of the Gadigal nation in Redfern NSW. A group of Australian First Nation educators, artists and community workers including Bunuba man Frederick Copperwaite, Murriwarri woman Lily Shearer, and Biripai woman Liza-Mare Syron established the company at the request of the late Kevin Smith who wished to bring performing arts back to the community of Redfern, in honour of the founding members of the National Black Theatre.
In 2007, the actor, writer and theatre director Maryanne Sam created the lyrical but confronting play Lessons of Flight. This is a short play which centres around the story of two estranged sisters who are reunited in a hospital ward. The play looks at the way that memory is constructed and the way that memory and stories can heal while reinforcing people's sense of identity.
Yirrabin tells the story of the Sky sisters known to settlers as the Southern Cross. Yibiyung's world changes quickly. Her mother passes away soon after her younger brother is born and, despite her Uncle's pragmatism in assuming family responsibility, the Government intrudes as the ‘legal’ guardian of all Aboriginal and ‘half-caste’ children in the state, empowered by the notorious Aborigines Acts of 1905 and 1911.
Her story of being shunted from mission to more remote mission to working as a 12 year old domestic for farm settlers is not unfamiliar, but the focus remains on the characters drawn with much light and shade and sympathy, as their own searches for love and happiness are revealed.
In scene breaks, actors objectively recite memos and telegrams from the authorities referring to the movement of this ‘half-caste’ child. These theatrical devices convey the dispassionate white bureaucratic control behind so many lives like Yibiyung's. Ultimately, it is the spirit of the character’s optimism that engages an audience. The play does not ignore the harsher realities of a child of the Stolen Generation, and Yibiyung's optimism sustains us like the musical interludes which act as a pressing reminder of the spirit of indigenous people in dealing with injustices such as the theft of children, forced removal and the forced break up of families. As director Wesley Enoch points out in the original program, "… in a post-apology world, the need to tell these stories has not evaporated" (Enoch in Winmar 2008). The vitality of the play was reinforced in the original production by amazing performances by Miranda Tapsell as Yibiyung, David Page and Jimi Bani. Yibiyung is a powerful, authentic ensemble piece of Indigenous dramaturgy exploring with complexity the Stolen Generation and White power over Black lives.
Andrea James’ ‘Birrarung - The Forever Zone’ is a 2008 play which reflects Indigenous Australian lives in the context of on-going land rights disputes. The play was commissioned by the White Whale Theatre in 2008 as part of Melburnalia No.2. The initial project centred on writers creating a short piece which explored a Melbourne suburb. The Forever Zone explores the suburb of ‘Birrarung’ and the ‘river of mists’ meaning of the word in the local indigenous dialects. The play, which is set on the Melbourne tramway system uses the imagery of the tramway as a modern river of transportation in Melbourne. The Magical Realism style of the play in reinforced by the play’s main character who is an ancient Aboriginal warrior dressed in a possum skin coat who confronts the ticket inspectors and transports them away into the Forever Zone to explore connects to land and identity.
In 2008 and 2009, larger issues concerning the organization, funding and training of indigenous theatre artists and the notion of a national indigenous theatre company were discussed widely in theatre circles and in the media. Driven by Wesley Enoch, Deborah Mailman, Rachael Maza and Stephen Page (former Artistic Director of the Adelaide Festival), these high profile indigenous theatre entities talked in the media about how the efforts of the National Aboriginal Black Theatre (formed in 1972) in Redfern lost momentum until the black playwrights conference in the '80s, where indigenous theatre artists met and significant plays were workshopped.
"I began to think we needed an advocate, at both the national and international levels, to champion these works that were just disappearing... I decided to start a process of national discussion about the possibility of forming a national indigenous theatre company. We must be united. If we fail, we fail together; but if we succeed, we succeed together to make some magic in this country." (Enoch 2008)
Oodgeroo – Bloodline to Country is a play written in 2008 and performed first at La Boite Theatre in Brisbane in 2009. The play tells the true story of when the famous Australian poet Oodgeroo Noonuccal and her son Denis Walker (one of the founders of the Australian Black Panthers Movement) were held captive as part of the hijacking of a BOAC aircraft in Dubai in 1974 by Palestinian Terrorists.
Oodgeroo – Bloodline to Country is a play written in 2008 and performed first at La Boite Theatre in Brisbane in 2009. The play tells the true story of when the famous Australian poet Oodgeroo Noonuccal and her son Denis Walker (one of the founders of the Australian Black Panthers Movement) were held captive as part of the hijacking of a BOAC aircraft in Dubai in 1974 by Palestinian Terrorists.
This is unique play and the 2009 La Boite production were given permission by Oodgeroo's family to tell this personal but relevant story about real events in Oodgeroo's life. While the play on one level is about the hijacking event, the play's episodic structure and sequences serve to help reveal the deeper themes raised by the piece as we encounter Oodgeroo's struggle with defining what she sees as her sense of place, equal rights and sense of identity.
Central to the dramatic tension of the play is Oodgeroo's belief in an activism of dialogue which can be contrasted with the more radical and confrontationalist activism represented by her son Denis Walker and the Palestinian terrorists. The eventual shooting of a German hostage acts as a metaphor for Oodgeroo's sense of the failure of the dialogue between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians and the ongoing struggle for indigenous voices to be acknowledged and heard.
In the play, the spirit of Kabul, Oodgeroo's dead son Vivian (himself an actor, director and playwright of some promise) resonates as a force which connects land, family, culture and identity. The power of the play was captured well in the La Boite Theatre's original production which saw Roxanne McDonald and Rhonda Purcell play the older and younger Oodgeroo respectively with darren Brady playing the ethereal Kabul. The play is a lasting tribute to the words, hope and deeds of Oodgeroo Noonucal who was and is a beacon of hope to both indigenous and non-indigenous Australians.
In 2009, at the first National Theatre Forum to be held in twenty years, Rachael Maza widened the argument expressing disappointment not only at the level and types of training offered to indigenous performers but scarcity of training in set design and stage production for skilled Indigenous Theatre Designers and Indigenous Theatre Technicians in Australia. At the time Alicia Talbot, the Urban Theatre Projects Artistic Director, made a commitment to try to and redress this industry imbalance and set up a project with the Belvoir Street Theatre and Urban Theatre Projects working together to address this problem. The artistic skills and working methods of indigenous artists and indigenous theatre production processes were discussed at length. When Urban Theatre Projects approached Belvoir about jointly supporting an Indigenous Technical Production Development initiative, it was acknowledged that although considerable gains had been made in addressing Indigenous dramaturgy and its methods and processes, that much work needed to be done in the production and stage design areas of indigenous theatre. It made immediate sense and both companies acknowledged that they were in a position to support new professional opportunities for Indigenous Theatre Technical practitioners. Urban Theatre Projects and Belvoir jointly held a 9-month professional development program to help develop emerging Indigenous practitioners in the area of theatre production, stage design and technical production. The Belvoir Theatre, Urban Theatre Projects and the Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne made an agreement to attempt to use and train Indigenous theatre production and stage design people on subsequent indigenous and non-indigenous projects.
Namatjira written by Scott Rankin for actor Trevor Jamieson and played first at Belvoir Street Theatre in Sydney in 2010. It later did seasons nationally at other theatres including in 2011 at the Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne. In the original production, the audience entered the space to find an indigenous man (actor Trevor Jamieson) sitting in on stool having his portrait painted by an artist. The stage is framed by the backdrop of a work-in-progress chalk rendition on black flats of an Albert Namatjira landscape being completed by real-life relatives of the famous artist. This makes the stage design a powerful and intricate part of the play. The story is the picture which emerges slowly under the guidance of the actor and the custodians of Namatjira’s story, his family. In the centre of the stage is a symbolic changeable rock (made of wood) which is used throughout the play. The subject sits hunched and solitary - awaiting for the canvas of his life to be filled in. The story begins...
The play Namatjira reveals the life of the famous indigenous watercolour artist Albert Namatjira (1902-1959) a Western Arrente man (from near the Western MacDonnell Ranges). Born in the desert near Elea in the Northern Territory, he was renamed Albert by a Lutheran missionary. He was the first Indigenous to be freed from the restrictions that made indigenous people 'fauna' and wards of the state and he was given Australian citizenship. He was awarded the Queen’s Coronation medal in 1953. He married and fathered ten children. Namatjira’s talent brought him wealth, fame and the responsibility of looking after his extended family and a community numbering some 600 indigenous people. But as the play reveals, his love and talent for painting and his duty to provide for his people, led Namatjira to 'walk between two cultures'. The climax of the play comes when it is revealed to us that following the drunken murder of a woman, Namatjira is charged as an accessory to murder because he left a bottle of rum where a clan brother could access it. Jail painted Namatjira into a solitary corner when he returned back home, he suffered a heart attack and eventually died in an Alice Springs’ hospital.
The success of the play was dependent on the subtle power of Namatjira's life and the dynamism of the actor Trevor Jamieson. Jamieson sets the tone and style of the play in his opening by stating he will be “… playing, no, channeling Namatjira”. The continuous breaking of the fourth wall in almost Brechtian way, comments on the cultural desert of a prejudiced, selfish and brutal 'white' Australian underbelly scratching its white lines into Namatjira’s face and the landscape he inhabits and reflects in his art.
The play's power as a piece works not just because of the power of seeing one actor in a space taking us on such an amazing journey, but also due to the background presence of artists sketching the chalk backdrop during the performance and the many comic vaudeville-like interludes (in the original production Jamieson's comic support was played by Derik Lynch).
The play in performance is tightly held in place, by the silent, still voices of the direct descendants of Albert Namatjira; Hilary Wirri, Lenie Namatjira, Kevin Namatjira, Elton Wirri, artists in their own right. The sense of these custodians of his story and his landscape is ever present, a reminder that indigenous storytelling and indigenous theatre has a different set of laws for ownership which were set well before the west and Greek theatre set down its principles.
Scott Rankin, directed the original production with great care, utilizing the power and potency of Namatjira’s story and punctuating this with reportage style commentary sometimes of a comic nature. The powerful stage design created live on the stage before the audience in original productions joined with the acting to create a seamless living canvas of the life of Albert Namitjira.
Trevor Jamieson and Scott Rankin had also collaborated back in 2006 to write and have Jamieson star in an another production called Ngapartji Ngapartji. This production has been restaged by Rankin and Jamieson many times since 2006. The title itself comes from Pitjantjatjara concept of exchange and this play explores the themes of dispossession and displacement from country, home and family. Exploring the story of the Pitjantjatjara family’s forced removal off their homelands for the testing of British atomic bombs at Maralinga, the play deals with notions of place and belonging.
2010 also saw the first production by Sydney's First Nations Moogahlin. The production was the third part of the PACT led project Gathering Ground at the Block in Redfern, Sydney, developed as a community performance development project. This oral history and verbatim theatre project joined the stories of different First nations people who have lived, survived and sometimes thrived in the Redfern community.
In 2010 and 2011, Ilbijerri Theatre Company in conjunction with LaMama Theatre in Melbourne initiated the Coranderrk: We Will Show the Country project. The project, adapted by Andrea James and Giordano Nanni with dramaturgy done by Rachael Maza Long featured performances by Syd Brisbane, Jack Charles, Jim Daly, Peter Finlay, Greg Fryer, Liz Jones, Tom Long, Melodie Reynolds and Glenn Shea.
The play is set in Victoria in 1881 and involves the real life events of the indigenous men and women of the 'Coranderrk Aboriginal Reserve' taking on the 'Board for the Protection of Aborigines' in a fight for indigenous justice, dignity and self-determination. The play emerged out of the Minutes of Evidence Project, a collaborative project between Australian Indigenous and Non-Indigenous artists, researchers and community leaders to share stories and experiences of the past to help understand and heal the bonds between Indogenous and Non-Indigenous Australians.
In 2011, Wesley Enoch was appointed to the prestigious position of Artistic Director of the Queensland Theatre Company (QTC), making him the first indigenous theatre artist to be appointed the head of a major state theatre company. Ironically, his appointment was announced the same day that Australia got its first female Prime Minister. Enoch saw his appointment as an opportunity for engagement and diversity and an important acknowledgement of the importance and significance of indigenous drama to the Queensland and Australian communities.
An interesting piece of indigenous theatre in 2011 was Krakouer!, Reg Cribb’s (nephew of footballer Bob Cribb) adaptation of Sean Gorman’s biography of the Krakouer brother the Aboriginal footy legends from country Western Australia who rose to prominence in the mid-1980s. Krakouer! is wonderfully straightforward and humorous retelling of the lives of two great brothers of football from the dusty backblocks of Mount Barker (near Fremantle in WA to Melbourne, the MCG and AFL football legend status in the 1980s.
Cribb was able to wonderfully put AFL sport and its stories onto the stage where he paints a warts-and-all portrait of the brothers. His portrait of Jim Krakouer is particularly amazing as Cribb deals with problems with anger and drugs which led to his arrest and imprisonment on drug trafficking charges in 1996. The play also paints a vivid picture of footy prior to it attempting to deal with racism and also acts as a critique of a code that often left young players physically broken (in Phil's case, his knees wrecked) or unable to put together a post-sport life (as exemplified by Jim). The play tackles on-field racism but it also takes the media to task for its more polite forms of prejudice and its continued use of the words 'black magic' do describe the fortitude, talent and hard work which produced the on-field performances of the brothers.
Late in 2011, work was completed on the first opera written by an indigenous artist. Deborah Cheetham’s indigenous opera Pecan Summer, an opera about the 1939 Cummeragunga Strike, the first mass strike by indigenous people.
The work premiered early in 2012 to critical acclaim demonstrating the flexibility of indigenous dramatic material and indigenous performing artists in taking on different forms with challenging subject matter.
The 2012 premiere of Wayne Blair’s Bloodland directed by Stephen Page, fused together a powerful piece of theatre using traditional languages and Pidgin English, plaus dance and song to tell the story. This combined production mounted by the Sydney Theatre Company and Bangarra Dance Theatre is a drama centred around social dysfunction, black –on-black conflict and the difficulties of observing traditional ways and laws against a backdrop of western values which increasingly hold little meaning.
Bloodland looks at a community torn. As an indigenous drama, it is rich in its cultural representations, capturing the tension between ancient and modern customs and allowing the audience a glimpse of what might be lost. Blair’s piece is confronting, refusing to blame kava, alcohol, mining or sexual abuse for a community and individuals torn apart. Bloodland ultimately reinforces the idea of balancing collective and individual responsibility perhaps the greatest reflection for the whole Australian community on where indigenous drama and indeed indigenous culture stands now in the early 21st century.
Alana Valentine’s Head Full of Love was mounted by the Queensland Theatre Company in mid 2012 under the stewardship of the QTC Artictic Director Wesley Enoch. In a bold move from tradition, the play premiered in Darwin before its mainhouse season at the Cremorne Theatre on Brisbane. The play thematically deals with reconciliation in the 21st century environment where relations between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians is at a crossroads.
Head Full of Love centres on the story of Tilly (Roxanne McDonald in the original production) and Nessa (Colette Mann in the QTC prodiction) who are strangers whose storoes intercept at cirical moments. As an acute diabetic, Tilly spends four hours a day for three days a week, on a dialysis machine. She is torn away from her country and her family. Nessa is a paranoid urban woman who arrives in Alice Springs in her tourist gear seeking tp escape her life and metropolitan paranoias. The play is set against the backdrop of a beanie weaving festival and it follows the ups and downs of Tilly and Nessa’s newly formed relationship as they reveal their pasts and attempt to weave their stories into beanies for the festival before time runs out. Head Full of Love beautifully addresses Australian indigenous/non-indigenous relations with a maturity, sensitivity and humanity which harks back to Anita Heiss’ touching 2004 film Checkerboard Love.
Valentine reinforces stereotypes but challenges them, presenting Tilly and Nessa’s relationship as honest, gritty and unsentimental. The two characters embrace the concepts of understanding and reconciliation in deep and complex ways. As part of the original production’s creation, the cast and crew experienced and engaged with the plight of indigenous dialysis pateients in Alice Springs through meeting with patients and discussing and recording their experiences.
One of the strengths of the original production was the use of McDonald and Mann as storytellers who negotiate their way through their turbulent relationship with humour and charm. The original production was richly symbolic in its landscape which was created by Brett Collery’s musical score and Simone Romaniuk’s urban and desert stage designs. The director of the original production, Wesley Enoch helped to give an authentic, honest and imaginative touch to every story told in this play. Ultimately, the simplicity of the play’s metaphors allowed the play to address the complex personal, social and political issues involved in reconciliation.
The embracing of indigenous stories and dramatic processes and has had an impact on Australian drama since The Cherry Pickers and The Cake Man first appeared on stage. Yarrabah! The Musical was a project run jointly by Opera Australia and the Yarrabah community (just outside Cairns in Northern Queensland). The project which reached fruition in August 2012, started as part of a campaign by Opera Australia’s Artistic Director Lyndon Terracini to extend the influence and appeal of opera to beyond the major cities of Sydney and Melbourne and beyond the confines of places like the Sydney Opera House and the Victorian Arts Centre in Melbourne. Terracini had helped set up an indigenous advisory committee at Opera Australia to help develop processes and protocols for continuing a range of projects attempting to connect with indigenous communities and culture. The project had its origins in conversations Terracini had with Yarrabah elder Henrietta Marrie in 2009 and in 2010, Terracini went back to the Yarrabah community and started to develop the project.
Yarrabah! The Musical is essentially an opera/musical theatre piece based on the history and culture of Yarrabah. The community, originally set up in 1892 as an Anglican mission for people removed from their homelands, has had a rich and often traumatic history but the community is ultimately characterized by positivity and forgiveness. The piece evolved over two years and involved 45 local residents from the small Indigenous community who worked extensively with a range of performing artists. In 2010, Terracini went to a community meeting at the local school to throw around some ideas and listen to the locals thrash out some ideas and songs on guitars. Terracini also started to spend time talking to three elders, hearing their stories and starting the process of seeking permission to tell their stories in the musical.
Multi-instrumentalist Shenzo Gregorio worked with the community to develop the music for the production. Writer, actress and director Rhoda Roberts (a Bundjalung woman who has worked on many complex projects including the indigenous sequences of the 2000 Syney Olympic Games Opening and Closing Ceremonies) made many trips to Yarrabah and talked to many members of the community and she combined this with tireless research which she did using government documents and academic papers. Crucial to Roberts’s script was that she saw this piece as revolving not around any individual story but the story of an incredible community telling its many stories through music and song. She saw the need to focus a considerable amount of the musical narrative on life in the dormitory system and mission life. The musical ultimately meanders through the major events in Yarrabah’s history from the forced movement onto the mission to the fatal bomb explosion in 1944, to the bravery of the 1957 strike by indigenous men in community as they fought for reasonable pay and conditions. The most striking element of this piece seemed to be the humour and positivity. The musical resonated with reminders of a strong community and for a wider audience the appeal seemed to be the way that this piece embraced the stories of this community. The piece opened with simple singing accompanied by a guitar: “Always look back little child, remember your past, stories of these lands where mountains stand in the blue.”
The piece moved onto a song and dance homage to those who were taken from their homelands and made to live in the dormitories. The original production had the actors play multiple characters, conjuring up different moments in Yarrabah’s history. In a leter sequence, a cantankerous old man is shown refusing to leave home for the shelter of a safer place during a ferocious storm. In another sequence, schoolchildren clicked and clapped to create the wonderful soundscape of rain falling in the forest. Yarrabah! The Musical was a wonderful piece which juxtaposes traditional music and dance with modern imagery and motifs. A particularly striking moment involved women from the community, performing a dance about fishing whilst slowly moving in dormitory costumes to ethereal haunting music. The piece ended with the entire cast on stage performing a final stirring anthem.
Indigenous Australian actor Tom E. Lewis, best known for the title role in the film The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith co-created with director Michael Kantor The Shadow King for the Sydney, Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane Festivals. The Shadow King is an indigenous Australian transposition of Shakespeare’s King Lear which captures the originals potent tale of family destruction, greed, corruption and deception.
The play uses English, some Indigenous Australian dialects and some Australian Aboriginal pidgin English to explore the story of Shakespeare's King Lear and his daughters in an Indigenous Australian context. Lewis and Kantor's play starts with the Shadow king giving up his kingdom and this is shown as spiritual betrayal of the Indigenous Australian sacred relationship to the land whereby 'the country owns us and we are but the caretakers'. Lear's tragedy is not a personal one but a more relational and metaphysical one where he has given away land he had no rights to in the first place. The play addresses the post-Mabo environment where some First peoples are forced to 'sell' or 'lease' their tribal lands to companies often contradicting traditional relationships to Country and this theme works well in this re-contextualization of Shakespeare's King Lear with Tom E. Lewis in the main role. He was aptly supported by Kamahi Djordon King playing the dual roles of Kent and The Fool who acts as a narrator and guide to the dissent of Lear into madness. Kantor's direction along with the his use of video and live music gave the tragedy a sense of immediacy and potency especially when Edmund is seen hooning around the desert in his four-wheel drive to torture, kidnap and kill. The Shadow KIng gave an earthiness and immediacy to an old classic.
Meyne Wyatt, Leah Purcell and Rachael Maza were all part of Ilbijerri Theatre Company production of the play Beautiful One Day at the Belvoir Theatre in 2013. This ‘theatre documentary’ piece presents the moral maze of Palm Island, taking in both the troubled past and troubled present of the Aboriginal settlement. It pays particular attention to, and finds plenty of television-style court room drama in, the 2004 death in custody of Mulrunji Doomadgee and the surrounding inquiry and events. This piece, like many modern indigenous Australian theatre pieces is hybrid in its style mixing naturalistic and non-naturalistic styles. The use of verbatim or documentary theatre in the construction and performance of the piece adds a layer of authenticity and Maza and others Torres Strait heritage give a sense that this story is both authentic and 'owned' or under the caretakership of the creators and actors. The sense that this story is being given to the audience is strong, as if part of the resposibility and burden for the story now lies with the audience. All Australians are implicated in the ongoing horror of Palm Island, but Belvoir’s production keeps us at a distance, marooning its performers on a floating island on stage like a reminder of our own detachment. In the early days of Palm Island, visiting white people “paid blacks to perform corroborees or shimmy up trees for coconuts.” As much as we’d like to think that times and attitudes have changed, Beautiful One Day is a stark reminder of the voyeurism that cultural history and interaction can be victim to. 2013 also marked the 23rd year of the Ibbijerri Aboriginal and Torres Strait Theatre Cooperative (Ilbijerri Theatre), Australia’s oldest continuous Indigenous Theatre Company.
In 2014 the Ilbijerri Theatre Company launched the Ilbijerri Writer’s Residency which provided a unique opportunity for emerging Indigenous writers to be fully supported through the process of creating new work and working within the unique practices and support of Australian Indigenous dramaturgy with Australia’s longest surviving Indigenous theatre company. 2014 also saw a remounting of a National and Regional tour for the company of ‘Jack Charles Vs The Crown’ which won the 2014 APACA Drover Award for tour of the year and the 2014 Helpmann Award for best Regional Tour Production. The production also toured the United Kingdom performing at the Barbican Centre to wonderful reviews. The 2008 award winning documentary ‘Bastardy’ about jack Charles and his life was also screened at the Barbican to accompany this extraordinary play which is the triumph and legacy of the great Jack Charles and the Ilbijerri Theatre Company. The changing financial state of Australian Theatre and the Arts Council meant that 2014 saw a number of moved readings of new Indigenous Australian dramas rather than the small initial staging of new Indigenous Australian drama indicative of the 1990’s. At the Melbourne Theatre Company’s ‘Cybec Electric’ in February 2014, Jane Harrison’s The Visitors was given a showing. This play is an imaginative and original interpretation of the story of the arrival of The First Fleet to Australia. The play is ultimately a biting satirical statement which centres around seven Aboriginal leaders discussing the arrival of the First Fleet, and debating whether the unexpected visitors are friends to be trusted or foes to be opposed. All wearing smart business attire, these men express their educated opinions boldly and passionately, and are torn between wanting to protect their families and their land, and wanting to learn more about the strangers that loom on the horizon. Harrison’s play is a powerful and thoughtful perspective on our understanding of history and the arrival of the First Fleet over 200 years ago.
The Visitors is a strong drama piece with social commentary that weaves through the predominantly serious text but humour abounds in the play (enacted primarily by Kamahi Djordon King in the original play reading) which is an intricate and entertaining mixture of theatre styles. The use in the piece of Indigenous Australian elders wearing suits gives them an ironic dignity and strongly reinforces a naive social commentary on notions of social acceptance and respectability. The Visitors is a thought provoking interpretation of the story of colonisation in Australia and the piece successfully combines historical elements in a refreshingly light-hearted story. The play is reminiscent of the powerful and playful irony of the masterful 1986 film Babakiueria which starred actor, playwright and Indigenous Australian leader Bob Maza.
In January 2014 at the Guild Theatre at the University of Melbourne. John Harding conducted a reading of the new play entitled Sisterly Love. The play is about redemption and uses historical documents to explore what led to the first public judicial killings in Victoria in 1842 where two Indigenous Australian men from Tasmania were tried, convicted and hanged for the murder of two whalers on Western Port Bay (near what is present day Port Melbourne). The Tasmanian Indigenous companions (including Truganini) of the Indigenous men along with the men who were later hung, in 1839 were brought to Melbourne where they escaped into the bush and led a guerrilla style resistance campaign, evading capture for six weeks.
February 2014 saw the appearance of Indigenous opera singer Tiriki Onus (grandson of the great Bill Onus) appear in a one-person piece of theatre which included opera and storytelling about his grandparents. The performance piece was entitled William and Mary. The show is a complex mixture of styles which tells the fascinating tale of two people who battled prejudice and social injustice to rise to a life of great joy and dignity.
In 2014 the Ilbijerri Theatre Company launched the Ilbijerri Writer’s Residency which provided a unique opportunity for emerging Indigenous writers to be fully supported through the process of creating new work and working within the unique practices and support of Australian Indigenous dramaturgy with Australia’s longest surviving Indigenous theatre company. 2014 also saw a remounting of a National and Regional tour for the company of ‘Jack Charles Vs The Crown’ which won the 2014 APACA Drover Award for tour of the year and the 2014 Helpmann Award for best Regional Tour Production. The production also toured the United Kingdom performing at the Barbican Centre to wonderful reviews. The 2008 award winning documentary ‘Bastardy’ about jack Charles and his life was also screened at the Barbican to accompany this extraordinary play which is the triumph and legacy of the great Jack Charles and the Ilbijerri Theatre Company. The changing financial state of Australian Theatre and the Arts Council meant that 2014 saw a number of moved readings of new Indigenous Australian dramas rather than the small initial staging of new Indigenous Australian drama indicative of the 1990’s. At the Melbourne Theatre Company’s ‘Cybec Electric’ in February 2014, Jane Harrison’s The Visitors was given a showing. This play is an imaginative and original interpretation of the story of the arrival of The First Fleet to Australia. The play is ultimately a biting satirical statement which centres around seven Aboriginal leaders discussing the arrival of the First Fleet, and debating whether the unexpected visitors are friends to be trusted or foes to be opposed. All wearing smart business attire, these men express their educated opinions boldly and passionately, and are torn between wanting to protect their families and their land, and wanting to learn more about the strangers that loom on the horizon. Harrison’s play is a powerful and thoughtful perspective on our understanding of history and the arrival of the First Fleet over 200 years ago.
The Visitors is a strong drama piece with social commentary that weaves through the predominantly serious text but humour abounds in the play (enacted primarily by Kamahi Djordon King in the original play reading) which is an intricate and entertaining mixture of theatre styles. The use in the piece of Indigenous Australian elders wearing suits gives them an ironic dignity and strongly reinforces a naive social commentary on notions of social acceptance and respectability. The Visitors is a thought provoking interpretation of the story of colonisation in Australia and the piece successfully combines historical elements in a refreshingly light-hearted story. The play is reminiscent of the powerful and playful irony of the masterful 1986 film Babakiueria which starred actor, playwright and Indigenous Australian leader Bob Maza.
In January 2014 at the Guild Theatre at the University of Melbourne. John Harding conducted a reading of the new play entitled Sisterly Love. The play is about redemption and uses historical documents to explore what led to the first public judicial killings in Victoria in 1842 where two Indigenous Australian men from Tasmania were tried, convicted and hanged for the murder of two whalers on Western Port Bay (near what is present day Port Melbourne). The Tasmanian Indigenous companions (including Truganini) of the Indigenous men along with the men who were later hung, in 1839 were brought to Melbourne where they escaped into the bush and led a guerrilla style resistance campaign, evading capture for six weeks.
February 2014 saw the appearance of Indigenous opera singer Tiriki Onus (grandson of the great Bill Onus) appear in a one-person piece of theatre which included opera and storytelling about his grandparents. The performance piece was entitled William and Mary. The show is a complex mixture of styles which tells the fascinating tale of two people who battled prejudice and social injustice to rise to a life of great joy and dignity.
By far, the most striking and memorable Indigenous Australian drama (so far) in 2014 was the Queensland Theatre Company’s production of Tom Wright’s Black Diggers under the guidance and directorship of Wesley Enoch which premiered at the Sydney Festival and was performed at the Sydney Opera House.
The play explores the shamefully neglected chapter of Anzac history - the role of the 800 odd Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander servicemen of World War I who served and were buried in theatres of war such as Flanders, Gallipoli and Palestine. Although the Defence Act prevented those who were not of "substantially European descent" to enlist, many of these men diverted around rules and the authorities to get in the army. The sad tragedy is that those who lived were not welcomed back as heroes but were reassigned to roles as unrecognized people (fauna) and refused the land grants for returned servicemen and even had their own land taken away from them. The piece is written for a nine-man person cast and Tom Wright's script (and the research done by Wright and Enoch) is based on the diggers' own stories as respectfully passed onto a team of researchers. The play highlights the tragic irony that for the first time many of the men felt valued when they served and prejudices and stereotypes were forgotten in the camaraderie of battle. The accounts related in this play are heroic but heartbreaking when the treatment these heroic soldiers received after the war is related. The play is more moving when one considers as Queensland Theatre Company Artistic Director (and co-researcher and director of Black Diggers) Wesley Enoch relates: "Stories have come to us through interviews with family members, scouring the official records, scholarly historical analysis and research and our own narratives; we believe them all to have equal value and truth." As Australia reached the centenary of the outbreak of World War I "the war to end all wars'', Black Diggers resonates with a strong message of the sacrifice which indigenous Australians have made throughout every aspect of the building of Australia and its history. Below find some clips from a production of the play and some discussions about the play:
Clips from the play and interviews with the director and writer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etJZctAx0jY&list=PLzNwuBy5MUnKX93M0VhJ6R7MDF3rAY9Om&index=1
Performance Promotional Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrYUuY2CeTA&list=PLzNwuBy5MUnKX93M0VhJ6R7MDF3rAY9Om&index=2
Play's Director Wesley Enoch Researching the Play:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbKT4DyH4kU&list=PLzNwuBy5MUnKX93M0VhJ6R7MDF3rAY9Om&index=4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JK0gT2Prcjs&list=PLzNwuBy5MUnKX93M0VhJ6R7MDF3rAY9Om&index=13
Post-performance discussion at school discussing the performance of the play:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLwqeVP2Njo
In August 2014, the Malthouse Theatre's mounted a production of Gunditjmara man Richard Frankland's autobiographical play Walking into the Bigness. Frankland is an Indigenous Australian playwright whose previous two plays Conversations with the Dead (2002) and Walkabout (2005) both had autobiographical content is also known as a poet, songwriter, singer, filmmaker and activist. Walking into the Bigness explores the stories and experiences of Frankland from his first job as an underage abattoir worker in Portland in South West Victoria to being a soldier who has to cope with daily racism to being a fisherman in Bass Strait tp being a commissioner investigating Indigenous Australian deaths in custody to becoming a father and tribal elder who helps young Indigenous Australian boys find their sense of place, dignity and culture. As the co-director of the production stated in the program for the show, "...something extraordinary happens when politics, aesthetics, history and the personal collide in front of an audience. Something ancient, and something new."
The narrative of the play is an epic emotional and moral autobiographical tale which is both chronological and circular in its narrative structure. The style of the play is a hybrid, a fusion of simple indigenous storytelling techniques, complex Brechtian ensemble multi-actor representation of a single narrational perspective, choric chanting and poetic symbolic representation. This hybrid style has become quite common to modern indigenous Australian drama and is reinforced in this production by a combination of direct address of narration, the naturalistic and symbolic re-enactment of sequences and scenes, cross-cutting, overlapping and choral dialogue and powerful monologues sometimes underpinned by white noise representing the inner turmoil of Frankland’s mind. The play is scored continuously by music played live on stage by Richard Frankland himself and Monica Weightman. This music is both narrative and atmospheric in its function since it anchors itself in music and songs which Frankland developed at the different points in his life portrayed on stage.
The context of the play is the life of Frankland who was born in the early 1960’s and historically the play follows Frankland’s life from growing up with a mother who holds dignity in her heart in adversity and fishing with his father in the 1960’s to the beginnings of Frankland’s working life in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s to the emotionally toll that his work with the Commission for Aboriginal Deaths in Custody in the 1990’s to checkpoints in Ramallah in the West Bank in Palestine and the slums of Mexico in the early 2000’s to his journey home and his recent work with local indigenous adolescents. These historical contexts also act as cultural contexts which are vehicles for an audience to connect with Frankland’s connection with the suffering of Indigenous people born with great dignity, while he struggles with embracing his sense of identity and place which is his inheritance. In this sense an audience can see the purpose of this production to be revelation, didacticism and one of agitation or as Frankland himself is quoted as saying in the prompt notes:
"Most of all, I would like to see [audiences] arm themselves with information to enable them to facilitate the voice of those who are oppressed in some way, shape and form."
The set for this production was a triangular-shaped composite set with two levels (with the upper level dominated by a 1960s station wagon) which was designed by the cross-disciplinary artists and designers The Sisters Hayes. The set's composite nature helped the play and the actors' depiction of multiple places and times from homes to parks to a boat during a storm in Bass Strait (done on the station wagon with strobe lighting and atmospheric music) to Frankland's office where he was Commissioner into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody to Palestine and Mexico. The set helped to define the more poetic landscape of the play (representative of the inner turmoil of Frankland), the sense of alienation and decay and the hope represented in the play by the natural motifs of earth, sky and water as symbolically represented by the Bigness referred to in the title of the play.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etJZctAx0jY&list=PLzNwuBy5MUnKX93M0VhJ6R7MDF3rAY9Om&index=1
Performance Promotional Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrYUuY2CeTA&list=PLzNwuBy5MUnKX93M0VhJ6R7MDF3rAY9Om&index=2
Play's Director Wesley Enoch Researching the Play:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbKT4DyH4kU&list=PLzNwuBy5MUnKX93M0VhJ6R7MDF3rAY9Om&index=4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JK0gT2Prcjs&list=PLzNwuBy5MUnKX93M0VhJ6R7MDF3rAY9Om&index=13
Post-performance discussion at school discussing the performance of the play:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLwqeVP2Njo
In August 2014, the Malthouse Theatre's mounted a production of Gunditjmara man Richard Frankland's autobiographical play Walking into the Bigness. Frankland is an Indigenous Australian playwright whose previous two plays Conversations with the Dead (2002) and Walkabout (2005) both had autobiographical content is also known as a poet, songwriter, singer, filmmaker and activist. Walking into the Bigness explores the stories and experiences of Frankland from his first job as an underage abattoir worker in Portland in South West Victoria to being a soldier who has to cope with daily racism to being a fisherman in Bass Strait tp being a commissioner investigating Indigenous Australian deaths in custody to becoming a father and tribal elder who helps young Indigenous Australian boys find their sense of place, dignity and culture. As the co-director of the production stated in the program for the show, "...something extraordinary happens when politics, aesthetics, history and the personal collide in front of an audience. Something ancient, and something new."
The narrative of the play is an epic emotional and moral autobiographical tale which is both chronological and circular in its narrative structure. The style of the play is a hybrid, a fusion of simple indigenous storytelling techniques, complex Brechtian ensemble multi-actor representation of a single narrational perspective, choric chanting and poetic symbolic representation. This hybrid style has become quite common to modern indigenous Australian drama and is reinforced in this production by a combination of direct address of narration, the naturalistic and symbolic re-enactment of sequences and scenes, cross-cutting, overlapping and choral dialogue and powerful monologues sometimes underpinned by white noise representing the inner turmoil of Frankland’s mind. The play is scored continuously by music played live on stage by Richard Frankland himself and Monica Weightman. This music is both narrative and atmospheric in its function since it anchors itself in music and songs which Frankland developed at the different points in his life portrayed on stage.
The context of the play is the life of Frankland who was born in the early 1960’s and historically the play follows Frankland’s life from growing up with a mother who holds dignity in her heart in adversity and fishing with his father in the 1960’s to the beginnings of Frankland’s working life in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s to the emotionally toll that his work with the Commission for Aboriginal Deaths in Custody in the 1990’s to checkpoints in Ramallah in the West Bank in Palestine and the slums of Mexico in the early 2000’s to his journey home and his recent work with local indigenous adolescents. These historical contexts also act as cultural contexts which are vehicles for an audience to connect with Frankland’s connection with the suffering of Indigenous people born with great dignity, while he struggles with embracing his sense of identity and place which is his inheritance. In this sense an audience can see the purpose of this production to be revelation, didacticism and one of agitation or as Frankland himself is quoted as saying in the prompt notes:
"Most of all, I would like to see [audiences] arm themselves with information to enable them to facilitate the voice of those who are oppressed in some way, shape and form."
The set for this production was a triangular-shaped composite set with two levels (with the upper level dominated by a 1960s station wagon) which was designed by the cross-disciplinary artists and designers The Sisters Hayes. The set's composite nature helped the play and the actors' depiction of multiple places and times from homes to parks to a boat during a storm in Bass Strait (done on the station wagon with strobe lighting and atmospheric music) to Frankland's office where he was Commissioner into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody to Palestine and Mexico. The set helped to define the more poetic landscape of the play (representative of the inner turmoil of Frankland), the sense of alienation and decay and the hope represented in the play by the natural motifs of earth, sky and water as symbolically represented by the Bigness referred to in the title of the play.
While props are used throughout the play, it is the two level set with a station wagon on top of the flat roof of a modest house which acts as a strong visual representation of Frankland as a man who travels widely, but always remembers home and his sense of place. This set also helped to define the more poetic landscape of the play representing the interior turmoil of Frankland and his hopes in a landscape of decay and alienation that is subject to the forces of nature as reinforced by the motifs of earth, sky and water and their symbolic representation as the Bigness referred to in the title of this play.
Frankland’s stories and songs are brought to life by five actors (three females and two males), who alternately play Richard Frankland and the other people who come in and out of his life. Three of the actors are from indigenous Australian heritage and two are non-indigenous. This, along with the possible perception by some audience members of there being only one indigenous actor on the stage (although the program clearly states otherwise) forces an audience to confront its own perceptions and conceptions of Australian Indigenous identity as one bound in identity and place and not race and colour. The audience must further confront notions of identity when they encounter the whole ensemble sometimes playing one character simultaneously and also being confronted by female actors playing the male Frankland while Frankland himself sits on stage.
The five ensemble performers Tammy Anderson, Paul Ashcroft Luisa Hastings Edge, Rarriwuy Hick and Tiriki Onus navigate the audience through the epic narrative of Frankland’s life until at the end of the play Frankland takes centre stage, introduces himself and launches with the whole cast and his fellow musician Monica Weightman into Frankland’s triumphant anthem Cry Freedom. The 'Bigness' of the world is announced early in this production with a bright arc of red blood, flung across a clear vinyl screen as the 14 year old Frankland starts work at a Portland abattoir. With his dad gone, Frankland is now the man of the house and his identity as a man hangs large amid the split carcasses and piles of trimming.
While the play is Frankland’s life story, directors Wayne Blair and Chris Mead seem to want to have the play resonate on a level beyond that of autobiography by reinforcing a hybrid theatre form where content, message and delivery are folded in together scored by the upbeat and sometimes atmospheric music, and the constant movement of actors to unfold and reveal the stories. The mix of Epic Theatre, melodrama, narration and representation is effective the stories and messages crucial to this play. The hardest, best job of Frankland’s life was as an investigator with the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. Those difficult years spent interviewing grieving families, visiting prisoners and wrestling with his own suicidal urges are only briefly touched on here. Perhaps this is because the terror and frustration of that experience was more thoroughly explored in his earlier work, Conversations with the Dead. In this production the tone of frustration, anger and loss of sense of place are undercut by light and hope as indicated by the bright harmonies and simple melodies of popular country music and other tunes.
The ensemble acting in this production was strong with all of the actors easily moving from narration to embodying Frankland. The sheer presence of Tiriki Onus (grandson of Bill Onus) is particularly strong partially due to his physical resemblance to a young Frankland. His poetic use of gesture combined with his bearish swagger and vocal power and strength to give a sense of Frankland as a man who embraces what the world gives him while struggling with his own demons and search for a sense of place. As an older version of Frankland, returning home, despairing at the loss of traditional lore, the ideals of kinship and community, Onus' gestures and voice embrace the layers of pain and frustration albeit to the tune of a pop song. It’s an unexpected but strangely evocative anthem which compliments this hybrid theatre piece filled with emotion, humour, rage, pride, sadness and the hope revealed in this memorable piece of autobiographical drama about the life of Richard Frankland.
2014 also marked the 21st year of the Western Australian Indigenous Australian Theatre company Yirra Yaakin (founded in 1993). The company is the second oldest Indigenous Australian theatre company in Australia. The company has had a strong commitment to Aboriginal culture in Western Australia and has produced strong indigenous Australian drama such as Waltzing the Wilarra, One Day in 67, Solid, Aliwa, Windmill Baby, Cruel Wild Women, Kaarla Kaatijin, Kep Kaatijin and even performed Shakespeare’s Sonnets in their own indigenous language at the International Shakespeare Festival in 2012 at The Globe in London under the title of Sonnets in Noongar. Yirra Yaarkin also nurtured and built the talents of Indigenous Australian writers and theatre makers such as Dallas Winmar, Mitch Torres, David Milroy, Ningali Lawford, Kelton Pell, Sally Morgan, and Jim Holland amongst others.
In 2015, Yirra Yaakin also won the major prize as Best production at the 2015 Performing Arts WA Awards for a new production of the powerful indigenous Australian play 'King Hit' (written originally by David Milroy in the 1990's). This production received many other nominations but successfully brought a Best Supporting Actor win to Karla Hart and Best Newcomer to Clarence Ryan. ‘Sugarland’ was written by Wayne Blair and Rachael Coopes after they spent considerable time researching the lives of young teenagers (especially young indigenous people) in Katherine in the Northern Territory. They started to workshop the play with actors from the ATYP (Australian Theatre for Young People) and in September 2014 they mounted a production of ‘Sugarland’. The success of this production lead to a full Australian national tour by the ATYP and Performing Lines for Blak Lines in 2016. The play is disturbing play which explores the concepts of identity and teenage bonding in the grips of a troubled society where disconnections of self and community seem rife. The play explores the rifts between Black and White outback communities but ultimately the similarities and bonds of individuals is reinforced by this piece. This is not a play for the light-hearted. The young characters portrayed are based on real people and sequences like the self-harm and the bonding game of choking until near death is confronting to watch. The initial performance of this sequence by Hunter Page-Lochard as Jimmy and Elena Foreman as Erica was extremely confronting as a piece of theatre but acted with empathy and focus. The play is however, a strong ensemble piece and the original production included the co-playwright Rachael Coopes (as the frustrated but caring social worker) along with Narek Arman, Michael Cameron and Dubs Yunupingu.
Nakkiah Lui is an Indigenous playwright, actor, director, comic writer, social commentator and radio broadcaster of Gamilaroi (whose homelands cover a large area of Northern NSW and Southern QLD from Quirindi to walgett to Nindigully to Glen Innes) and Torres Strait Islander heritage. Lui was born in Sydney in 1991 and grew up in the working class Western Sydney suburb of St Marys where many of her comic sketches are set.
Lui grew up battling with both racism and obesity (she was 120 kg as a teenager). She cites stories of remembering visiting relatives in jail as a young child. She is probably best known as a playwright and the co-writer and star of Black Comedy (a television comedy program on the ABC in Australia). She has also been a columnist for the Australian Women's Weekly magazine as well as one of the hosts of Radio National's Awaye program and also appearing as a regular guest and social commentator on ABC's (Australia) The Drum and Q&A.
At the age of 16, Lui was awarded a scholarship to Pearson College UWC on Vancouver Island in Canada. Despite being homesick during this period, she immersed herself in reading plays including those of Indigenous Australian playwright Leah Purcell. Her first play, written around this time, was made up of a set of monologues written in the style of Purcell. She returned to Australia to start university.
Lui's first publicly performed play, The Prisoner and the Soldier, which was performed in 2010 at the Short+Sweet Festival in Sydney, explores the capture and imprisonment in Japan after the fall of Singapore of her Indigenous Australian grandfather Fred Beale (who Nakkiah and her sister visited most days in their childhood). She didn't know any actors when her play was chosen for performance so she got her parents to perform in the play.
From the success of this play, Lui was awarded a position as playwright-in-residence from 2012 to 2014 at Sydney's Belvoir Theatre. In 2012, she was awarded the Dreaming Award by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Board of the Australia Council. She was seconded in 2013 to the Griffin Theatre where she held the position of artist-in-residence. This was a prolific period for Lui since she wrote a number of plays including I Should Have Told You Before We Made Love (That I'm Black) (2012), This Heaven (2013), This Heaven (2013) and the highly successful and controversial Blackie Blackie Brown: The Traditional Owners of Death (2013).
With the opening moments of the play involving the lines "Your white meat id DONE, mother***er!" and the dragging of a flamboyantly dressed theatregoer through a hole in the stage floor, Blackie Blackie Brown was always going to be confronting and controversial. The play is a satirical super hero science fiction revenge comedy underpinned by camp over the top staging and humor. The play's narrative centres around a young female Indigenous Australian archaeologist who gains superpowers after disturbing an Indigenous Australian site of a horrendous massacre. Embracing the powers of the ancient figure of Blackie, she takes on the mission to kill all the living descendants of the four white men who massacred the archaeologist's great-great grandmother's people. Much of the satire of the play was lost on audiences and critics who saw the play as glorifying murdering 'white' people based on the colour of their skin or the actions of their ancestors. However, Lui herself sees the play as unpacking the issues of racism, white supremacy and black trauma through the way it switches around the premise of violence based on race. She sees the play as a satire revenge comedy which comments on the violent genocide of Indigenous Australians which is often hidden and rarely discussed openly. The play is a wonderfully dramatic piece containing powerful speeches which are heightened by the digital comic book mise en scene often done digitally in some productions. Lui continues to create exciting dramatic work for the stage and also for television including her plays Kill the Messenger (2015), Power Plays (2016) and Black is the New White (2019). Her work as a writer and actor on the television comedy Black Comedy (2014 & 2016) reinforces the diversity of her work.
2015 saw the strengthening of the development of leadership, ties and dialogue between Indigenous Australian practitioners through the 4th National Indigenous Theatre Forum held in Brisbane at the Judith Wright Centre for Contemporary Arts. Over 70 Indigenous Australian practitioners, playwrights and administrators met for 3 day in September to hold workshops, dialogue and forums about how to continue to strengthen the independence of the Australian Indigenous theatre sector while strengthening links and dialogue between companies, networks and individuals. The concepts of leadership and mentoring for Indigenous Australian theatre artists for the 21st century were explored in detail and once again the vibrant links and creative work of Indigenous Australian theatre industry were evidence of indigenous peoples, nations and networks being strong. A number of initiatives were highlighted in the 2015 NITF including the great work done in the Goolarri Writer's Program run by Dot West and Mari Laurie in Broome Western Australia which through Arts Council Funding helped to develop through workshops the skills of Indigenous Australian writers specifically for drama and the stage. The mentorship of young and established writers by West and Laurie along with Kyle Morrison helped to develop again the sense of kinship between the peoples and stories which have made Australian Indigenous Drama strong since even before the First Aboriginal Playwrights Conference in Canberra in 1987. An International Indigenous Theatre Panel with Indigenous Theatre practitioners from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Wales and the Democratic Republic of Congo discussed the importance of Indigenous leadership in theatre and the arts with exploring work that reflects the diversity of specific ideas in specific cultural contexts and engagement.
The style of the play is essentially social realism and the authenticity of the research done by Blair and Coopes sometimes makes the language too real and confronting for an audience (especially the lavishness of the use of swearing and expletives in many parts of the play). However, like many indigenous Australian plays the humour and authenticity of the characters is used to great effect. Like a number of Australian Indigenous plays, the device of music is used to provide both a narrative unity and a Brechtian style. In the play this is done through the form of a singing contest, and in the original production Yunupingu's superb voice adds a tone and texture to both the play and the original production.
A range of Australian First Nations' theatre projects started to emerge during 2015 and 2016 including
Blak Cabaret. Malthouse Theatre. South Melbourne.
Black Diggers. Tom Wright (directed by Wesley Enoch). Queensland Theatre Company. Sydney Opera House. Sydney Festival. Sydney (NSW).
Black Diggers. Tom Wright (directed by Wesley Enoch). Queensland Theatre Company. Sydney Opera House. Sydney Festival. Sydney (NSW).
King Hit. David Milroy. (Production Remounting). Yirra Yaakin Theatre Company. Perth. 2015.
The Giants. Yirra Yaakin Theatre Company. Perth International Arts Festival. 2015.
Beautiful One Day. (New Production). Meyne Wyatt, Leah Purcell and Rachael Maza. Ilbijerri Theatre Company. North Melbourne Meat Market (VIC). This is a verbatim-based documentary piece of theatre.
2016:
Bovell, Andrew. The Secret River (Based on the novel of the same name by Kate Grenville). National Tour. Performed by the Sydney Theatre Company.
Bangarra Dance Theatre. Terrain. (Remounted National touring production). Performed at the Riverside Theatres, Parramatta.
James, Andrea & Hearst, Elise. Bright World. Presented by Theatreworks at Acland Street, St Kilda.
Lui, Nakkiah. Power Plays. Performed at the Belvoir Theatre Company.
2017:
Bangarra Dance Theatre. One’s Country – The Spine of Our Story. Performed at Carriageworks, Sydney.
Bangarra Dance Theatre. Bennelong. Performed at the Riverside Theatres, Parramatta. Toured Nationally.
Bangarra Dance Theatre. Dark Emu. Performed at the Sydney Opera House. Toured nationally.
Enoch, Wesley & Mailman, Deborah. The Seven Stages of Grieving (updated and revised production). National tour produced by Grin and Tonic Theatre Company and The Queensland Theatre Company.
Ilbijerri Theatre Company. Tanderrum. Performed in Federation Square, Melbourne.
James, Andrea & the Ilbijerri Theatre Company. Coranderrk (Revised production with additional scenes). Performed by Ilbijerri Theatre Company. Victorian state tour.
Yirra Yaakin. Boodjar Kaatijin. Yirra Yaakin Theatre Company. School Tours in Western Australia.
2018:
Alberts, Jada. Brother’s Wreck. Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne. Toured nationally.
BigHART. New Roebourne Project. Iremugadu, Pilbara Region, WA. Project and performances.
Beckett, Katie and Ilbijerri Theatre Company. Which Way Home. Produced by Ilbijerri Theatre Company and Regional Arts Victoria. Victorian state tour.
Charles, Jack. Jack Charles Vs The Crown. Performed by the Ilbijerri Theatre Company. Performed on an international tour including at the Shizuoka Arts Theatre, Japan.
Ford, Matt & Simpson, Dane. Aborigi-LOL. Malthouse Theatre, MelbourEnsemble Theatre, Sydney, NSW.ne, Victoria.
James, Zac & Yirra Yaakin Theatre Company. School Tours in Western Australia.
Lui, Nakkiah. Blackie Blackie Brown. Performed at the Sydney Theatre Company and Melbourne's Malthouse Theatre.
Michael, Ian & van Helten, Seanna. Hart. Produced and Toured by She Said Theatre Company and Regional Arts Victoria. Touring show. Victoria.
2019:
Atherden, Geoffrey & Enoch, Wesley. Black Cockatoo. Sydney Festival. Ensemble Theatre, Sydney, NSW.
Bangarra Dance Theatre. Knowledge Ground: 30 years of Sixty-five Thousand. Performed Carriageworks, Sydney. Toured nationally.
Blak MaMa: Five Plays in a Day. Indigenous Australian new play readings presented by La Mama Theatre at Grant Street Theatre including Maryann Sam's Coconut Woman, Jacob Boehme's Flashbacks, Drew Hayden Taylor's Cottagers and Indians, Glenn Shea's MiWi and Ellen van Neerven's Swim. La MaMa Theatre, Carlton, Victoria.
Briggs, Tony. The Sapphires. HIT Productions, Victorian Country Tour Revival. Victoria.
Chi, Jimmy & the Kuckles Band. Bran Nue Dae (30 year revival). Sydney Festival. Opera Australia. Riverside Theatre, Sydney, NSW.
Goodidja Productions. Kabarrijbi Wangkijbi Spectacular - Coming Together of Nations. Gregory, Far North QLD.
Quandamooka Festival. Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island, QLD). Quandamooka peoples festival with dramas enacting stories of survival and the arrival of the whales.
Urban Theatre Project. Blak Box - Four Winds. Deep listening storytelling and performance project. Blacktown, NSW.
Wyatt, Meyne. City of Gold. SBW Stables Theatre, Sydney. Here is an extract performed on the ABC's Q+A program on June 8th 2020. It was watched live by about 500,000 people and shared on social media to over 3 million people.
Bangarra Dance Theatre. Knowledge Ground: 30 years of Sixty-five Thousand. Performed Carriageworks, Sydney. Toured nationally.
Blak MaMa: Five Plays in a Day. Indigenous Australian new play readings presented by La Mama Theatre at Grant Street Theatre including Maryann Sam's Coconut Woman, Jacob Boehme's Flashbacks, Drew Hayden Taylor's Cottagers and Indians, Glenn Shea's MiWi and Ellen van Neerven's Swim. La MaMa Theatre, Carlton, Victoria.
Briggs, Tony. The Sapphires. HIT Productions, Victorian Country Tour Revival. Victoria.
Chi, Jimmy & the Kuckles Band. Bran Nue Dae (30 year revival). Sydney Festival. Opera Australia. Riverside Theatre, Sydney, NSW.
Goodidja Productions. Kabarrijbi Wangkijbi Spectacular - Coming Together of Nations. Gregory, Far North QLD.
Quandamooka Festival. Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island, QLD). Quandamooka peoples festival with dramas enacting stories of survival and the arrival of the whales.
Urban Theatre Project. Blak Box - Four Winds. Deep listening storytelling and performance project. Blacktown, NSW.
Wyatt, Meyne. City of Gold. SBW Stables Theatre, Sydney. Here is an extract performed on the ABC's Q+A program on June 8th 2020. It was watched live by about 500,000 people and shared on social media to over 3 million people.
2020
Black Ties. Written by Tainu Tukiwaho & John Harvey. Directed by Rachael Maza & Tainu Tukiwaho. Joint Maori and Indigenous Australian production produced by the Ilbijerri Theatre Company (Melbourne, Australia) & Te Rehia Theatre Company (Aotearoa, New Zealand) for the Sydney Festival. Other touring performances cancelled. Here is a trailer for the production.
Hecate. Adapted and directed by Kylie J Morrison (Kaarjiilba Kaardn). Subiaco Arts Centre. Presented by Yirra Yaakin Theatre Company in association with the Bell Shakespeare Company and the Perth Festival Commission. This adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth done in Noongar language.
In a world where the Noongar language is spoken by all, a yarn about a Scottish king is retold. This play is culmination of eight years of hard work by Kaarjiilba Kaardn in a process that included all nine cast members reclaiming their Noongar language in rehearsals. The vibrant performance uses cultural motifs and subtitles and intertitles.
From February 2020 until June 2020 live performances were cancelled in Australia due to the pandemic known as COVID-19. Many companies live video streamed productions. Here were some streamed.
Bangarra Dance Theatre, Terrain.
A promotion video of the Return to Country performances and workshops of this production was also released.
Here is a photo collection of costumes and designs from the same production.
James, Andrea. Sunshine Super Girl. Griffith Regional Theatre. Yarruwala Wiradjuri Festival. Griffith. August 2020. This theatre work by Yorta Yorta Gunnakurnai playwright Andrea James explores the life of the tennis champion, sporting legend and National Living Treasure Evonne Goolagong-Cawley. The play was mounted in consultation with the Wiradjuri community near Griffith on whose lands Evonne Goolagong-Cawley was born and on whose lands the play was premiered. It explores how a First nations girl from the bush who is supported by her community and family to overcome disadvantage, racism and privilege to rise to the highest level in elite sport.
Bedford, Kodie. Cursed. Belvoir Theatre, Sydney. Oct-Nov. 2020. This is the first play of Indigenous playwright Kodie Bedford of Djaru and Gija heritage who grew up in Geraldton, Western Australia. She is a graduate of the University of Western Australia and she has written for radio and television including the acclaimed television series 'Mystery Road'. 'Cursed' is a comedy which explores the nature of complex family relationships in a large interracial family as well as the nature of Australian racial prejudice. The play centres around Bernadette and her family and her return to Geraldton to comfort her "crazy white side" of her family upon the impending death of her grandmother. The fragility of Bernadette's family is revealed through the insane rituals and revelations at Nan's deathbed. Bernadette reflects on the madness of her family and a talk she prepared as a six year olds of the horrific events of the wreck of the Batavia where the shipwreck survivors descended into murderous madness. She wonders whether she and all her family are also going mad. Bernadette and her family must face their own demons and the inheritance of generational trauma and violent dispossession which are lasting legacies of Australian colonialization.
Some interesting articles about Indigenous Australian Drama appeared in 2020. Here are links to some of them:
Another emerging playwright in Indigenous Australian theatre has been Declan Furber Gillick. Gillickis an independent,
multi-award winning Arrernte artist, musician and educator with a passion for
mentoring young artists and writers. His creative practice spans playwrighting,
poetry, film, prose and visual arts as well as hip-hop, and rap (performing and
releasing music under the name Knomad). Declan completed a Masters in Writing
for Performance at Victorian College of The Arts in 2017 and has been a
writer-in-residence as part of Melbourne Theatre Company’s Next Stage program
since 2018. Declan is also an activist, a radio broadcaster with 3RRR Melbourne
and a facilitator and teacher, having taught at primary, secondary and tertiary
levels. He has had work published with Southerly, Centre For Indigenous Story,
University of Queensland Press and Affirm Press. His plays include BIGHOUSE
DREAMING, Scar Trees and Jacky, the last of which was commissioned by Melbourne
Theatre Company in 2019. He has released his debut EP as Knomad in 2019,
entitled Love and Politics Pt. One, and you can find his work on Spotify as
well as on Instagram @kno_mad_music.
BIG HOUSE DREAMING is a play which explores the crisis of Aboriginal youth in
the justice system. It was performed first in 2021 at the Arts Centre in Melbourne. The play centres around a young Indigenous Australian, Chris Wallace, who is sentenced to detention for breach of an order and was
originally charged and sentenced for a minor crime. Declan as writer, performance maker and actor initially took on the role of Chris. The play explores the lack of justice in the justice system and ends with the tragic murder of Chris by a prison guard who remained deaf to his harrowing cry ‘I cannot
breathe.’ The play begins with Chris placing red earth in a circle around the
stage which transports the audience to Central Australia. Chris dies because the prison
guard repeatedly demands him to give him a piece of paper he was holding. Chris
became angry and distressed and told the guard it was not drugs and to leave
him alone. The guard ignored his pleas and aggressively closed in on Chris
killing him. On the paper was a song. Chris was an aspiring rapper. His song
represented his sacred core that got violated. It was all he had. He furiously and desperately sought to keep it. He
begged the guard to leave him alone. Some of the words were ‘I don’t want
to live no more’. At the end of the play Chris, tragically murdered, ironically and defiantly gets to sings his song.
Commissioned through MTC’s NEXT STAGE Writers’ Program, ‘Jacky’ by is a
play by Gillick which premiered in 2023 which explores disadvantage and culture
on many levels. Jacky is a young Australian Indigenous man who seems on the
road to “making it”. He is renting a one-bedroom apartment in the city and is
looking to secure a bank loan to own it. To satisfy the bank’s requirements
though, notwithstanding the fact that he has built a nest egg, he must obtain a
full-time job. Linda who runs a program that invests heavily in First Nations’
Peoples seems in a position to help Jacky. When Jacky came to town, she secured
him employment at a pub and, given his predicament, she now all but promises
him full-time work. For the time being, Jacky collects decent money through working as a sex
worker. Enter Jacky’s layabout brother Keith who he hasn’t seen for some time.
Jacky initially put his brother up rent free but his laziness and messiness starts
to even frustrate Jacky. Meanwhile, Jacky strikes up a close and problematic relationship
with Linda’s ex-husband, Glenn. ‘Jacky’ is a confronting, warm and insightful piece of theatre which is
informed by Gillick’s life experiences. It is dramatic, comic and has an
immediacy and intimacy rare in modern plays. The play addresses larger
questions of ethics, morality and the nuances of cultural appropriateness.
Further Readings and Resources on Indigenous Drama in the Early 21st Century
‘Aboriginal Perspectives for Lower to Middle Secondary English’ (Unit 3) in the Macquirie Pen Anthology of Australian Literature Teaching Guide. 2009. Allen and Unwin. Sydney. http://www.macquariepenanthology.com.au/files/unit_3.pdf
Anderson, T. et al. 2002. Blak Inside – Six Indigenous Plays From Victoria. Currency Press. Strawberry Fields, Sydney.
Black Voice: A History of Indigenous Theatre (Radio Program). ‘Awaye’. ABC Radio National Australia. October 28th, 2011.
Bailey, J. 'Declan Furber Gillick' in Spectrum Magazine, The Age. August 3 2024. p.2.
Brisbane, K. 2001. The Future in Black and White Indigenousity in Recent Australian Drama. Currency Press. Surrey Hills., Sydney.
Casey, M. 2004. Creating Frames. Contemporary Indigenous Theatre in Australia 1967-97. University of Queensland Press. Brisbane.
Casey, M. & Craigie, C. 2011. A Brief History of Indigenous Australian Contemporary Theatre. Australian Script Centre. Salamanca, Tasmania. http://australianplays.org/assets/files/resource/doc/BlakStage_Essay_ABriefHistory.pdf
Chareles, J. & Romeril, J. 2013. Jack Charles V the Crown. Hobart: Australian Script Centre.
Extract: https://australianplays.org/script/ASC-1664/extract
Full Play: https://australianplays.org/script/ASC-1664
Coopes, R. & Blair, W. 2014. Sugarland. Brisbane: Playlab Press.
http://www.playlab.org.au/index.php/publications/shop/sugarland-by-rachael-coopes-detail
Drama Australia. 2007. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Guidelines for Drama/Theatre Education. Drama Australia.
Extract: https://australianplays.org/script/ASC-1664/extract
Full Play: https://australianplays.org/script/ASC-1664
Coopes, R. & Blair, W. 2014. Sugarland. Brisbane: Playlab Press.
http://www.playlab.org.au/index.php/publications/shop/sugarland-by-rachael-coopes-detail
Drama Australia. 2007. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Guidelines for Drama/Theatre Education. Drama Australia.
Enoch, W. 2000. ‘Indigenous Performance’. In The Oxford Companion to Indigenous Arts and Culture. Oxford University. Sydney.
Enoch, W. 2008. ‘Media Release and Speech’. April 28 2008. Reprinted in The Age April 29th, 2008.
Enoch, W. 2009. ‘Black Medea’ in Contemporary Indigenous Plays. Currency Press. Strawberry Hills, Sydney.
Frankland, R. 2002. 'Conversations with the Dead' in Blak Inside. Sydney: Currency Press.
https://australianplays.org/script/CP-1400
Frankland, R. (Feb. 2015). Richard Frankland Keynote Address. Australian Theatre Forum. Sydney: ATF. [Video]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9AxZ2QseA0
Gattenhof, S.(ed). 2005. Drama and Indigenous Perspectives , ADEM (Drama Australia Education Magazine) No 10. Drama Australia. Brisbane.
Ilbijerri Theatre Company. (2014, July 16). Ilbijerri Theatre Company Website. Retrieved from http://ilbijerri.com.au/
https://australianplays.org/script/CP-1400
Frankland, R. (Feb. 2015). Richard Frankland Keynote Address. Australian Theatre Forum. Sydney: ATF. [Video]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9AxZ2QseA0
Gattenhof, S.(ed). 2005. Drama and Indigenous Perspectives , ADEM (Drama Australia Education Magazine) No 10. Drama Australia. Brisbane.
Ilbijerri Theatre Company. (2014, July 16). Ilbijerri Theatre Company Website. Retrieved from http://ilbijerri.com.au/
Ilbijerri Theatre Company. (2012). Beautiful One Day. Hobart: Australian Script Centre.
Extract: https://australianplays.org/extract/ASC-1653
Full Play: https://australianplays.org/script/ASC-1653
Ilbijerri Theatre Company. (2019). Marguk Workshop Series. Teacher Resources. Workshop Series. Melbourne: Victoria Arts Centre.
https://www.artscentremelbourne.com.au/-/media/acm/files/events/2019/schools-and-teachers/marguk_teaching-resources.ashx?la=en&hash=767E04C92A37AE6359CE394D210E6F77E347D991
Malthouse Theatre. 2014. Walking into the Bigness by Richard Frankland (Educational Resource - Prompt Pack). Melbourne: Malthouse Theatre.
http://malthousetheatre.com.au/site/assets/uploaded/43f6be0f-walking-into-the-bigness-prompt-pack.pdf
NITF. (2015). 4th National Indigenous Theatre Forum. International Indigenous Theatre Forum Discussion. https://vimeo.com/143101550
Page, S. ‘Kinship and Creativity’, in Katharine Brisbane, (Ed) The Parson Lectures. Currency House. 2003.
Seven Sport, Seven Network Australia. (2000, September 15). Awakening - Sydney 2000 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2TZ8cw-e24
Extract: https://australianplays.org/extract/ASC-1653
Full Play: https://australianplays.org/script/ASC-1653
Ilbijerri Theatre Company. (2019). Marguk Workshop Series. Teacher Resources. Workshop Series. Melbourne: Victoria Arts Centre.
https://www.artscentremelbourne.com.au/-/media/acm/files/events/2019/schools-and-teachers/marguk_teaching-resources.ashx?la=en&hash=767E04C92A37AE6359CE394D210E6F77E347D991
Malthouse Theatre. 2014. Walking into the Bigness by Richard Frankland (Educational Resource - Prompt Pack). Melbourne: Malthouse Theatre.
http://malthousetheatre.com.au/site/assets/uploaded/43f6be0f-walking-into-the-bigness-prompt-pack.pdf
NITF. (2015). 4th National Indigenous Theatre Forum. International Indigenous Theatre Forum Discussion. https://vimeo.com/143101550
Page, S. ‘Kinship and Creativity’, in Katharine Brisbane, (Ed) The Parson Lectures. Currency House. 2003.
Seven Sport, Seven Network Australia. (2000, September 15). Awakening - Sydney 2000 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2TZ8cw-e24
Sisterly Love (Radio Program). ‘Awaye’. ABC Radio National Australia. March 8, 2014.
Stephens, D. 2014. Black Diggers: The Untold Story of WWI. SceneStr. Brisbane.
http://scenestr.com.au/arts/black-diggers-the-untold-story-of-wwi
Thomson. H. 2005. A Production of Great Impact: Review of Black Medea. The Age. September 2005.
Williams, D. 2014. Indigenous Soldiers Remembered: the Research Behind 'Black Diggers'. University of Sydney. Sydney. (First Published on 'The Conversation').
http://sydney.edu.au/news/84.html?newsstoryid=12936
http://scenestr.com.au/arts/black-diggers-the-untold-story-of-wwi
Thomson. H. 2005. A Production of Great Impact: Review of Black Medea. The Age. September 2005.
Williams, D. 2014. Indigenous Soldiers Remembered: the Research Behind 'Black Diggers'. University of Sydney. Sydney. (First Published on 'The Conversation').
http://sydney.edu.au/news/84.html?newsstoryid=12936
Winmar, D. 2008. Yibiyung. Currency Press. Sydney. (Script and Program for original production).
Wright, T. 2014. Black Diggers. Brisbane: Playlab Press.
Extract: https://australianplays.org/script/PL-182/extract
Full Play: https://australianplays.org/script/PL-182
Yirra Yaakin Theatre Company. 2014. Yirra Yaakin Theatre Company Website. Subiaco, Western Australia.
https://yirrayaakin.com.au/
Wright, T. 2014. Black Diggers. Brisbane: Playlab Press.
Extract: https://australianplays.org/script/PL-182/extract
Full Play: https://australianplays.org/script/PL-182
Yirra Yaakin Theatre Company. 2014. Yirra Yaakin Theatre Company Website. Subiaco, Western Australia.
https://yirrayaakin.com.au/
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Sorry 2002 wasn't Rachael Maza But Glenn Shea who named Blak Inside and picked the six Indigenous Plays when he was artistic director of Ilbijerri at the time, that is a fact, people shouldn't change history to suit themselves and Liz Jones from La Mama and Jill Smith Playbox were having meeting with Glenn to create the season, Glenn launched the Blak Inside season at the Playbox before the season began and then he was replaced
ReplyDeleteA pivotal moment in early 21st Century indigenous drama was the Ilbigerri Theatre Company's season of six indigenous plays in 2002. The Artistic Director of this ‘Blak Inside’ season was Rachael Maza Long who drew together a wide range of indigenous plays, playwrights and performers including John Harding's Enuff, Tammy Anderson's I Don't Wanna Play House, Tracey Rigney's Belonging, Maryanne Sam's Casting Doubts, Jadah Milroy's Crow Fire and Richard Frankland's Conversations with the Dead. This season of plays dealing with a diverse range of indigenous issues such as identity, belonging, racial prejudice and cultural differences cemented the work of the Ilbigerri Theatre as being pivotal to Australian theatre’s progress through into the 21st Century.