DRAMA

AUSTRALIAN DRAMA
AND THEATRE
 AUSTRALIAN THEATRE HISTORY
• Early years (1788-1849) - consisted of English stye musical theatre, commodes
and pantomimes. Some believed it to be a bad influence while others thought
of it as useful entertainment. Sydney’s Theatre Royal was established in 1833.

• Shifting Concerns (1900-1949) - The Australian Federation brought a sense of

nationalism. And theatre stated to take up Australian themes. The Great
depression hit the theatre world hard but also bought rise to many semi-
professional and smaller theatre groups.

• New Foundation (1950-2000) - The festival of Pets was established in 1953.

The plays Rusty Bugles and The seventeenth doll marked a turning point in
Australian theatre. NIDA was established in 1958. In the 1960-70’s
Indigenous works occupied prominent places on Australian stages. A lot of
Indigenous works used elements such as: storytelling, music and song, shots
in style and time and the use of Aboriginal languages in text.

• Since 2000 the publication of Indigenous plays has steadily increased in range
and number.
STOLEN
 INTRODUCTION

• Jane Harrison’s, Stolen represents a vitally important work for Australian

Theatre, dramatising the fear, perception and anguish felt by children
and their families, displaying ongoing devastating effects on generations
of aboriginal people physically, psychologically and culturally.

• Non-linear

• Reveals the characters stories through non-conventional episodic form.

• First emerged in 1993 when Harrison was asked to write it

• First perfumed in 1998

• Challenges the stereotypical attitude that the removal of indigenous

children was in their best interest.
 CONTEXT

• Stolen highlights the traumatic experiences of the stolen generation

• Almost all aboriginal families were affect across oe or more generations by the
removal or children between 1910-1970

• The “Bringing them Home” report published in 1997 inquired into the
separations of indigenous children form their families.

• It identified a wide range of mental health problems associated with removal

and separation

• The children also suffered abuse and trauma, including physical, emotional and
sexual abuse

• Reconciliation act 1991 promotes equity ad unsocial justice “building

relationships for change between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians”
 STRUCTURE

• Stolen is episodic and non-linear in structure: meaning moves back and forth in
time. The stories are not chronological: they lack structure in terms fo plot and
character development and very few stage directions

• This structure allows for the playwright to merge past and present and the
audience to see how the characters present live are intrinsically joined to their past.

• And for Characters to be suspended in time so their lives seemed linked even
though none of the characters were actually in the children's home at the same
time.

• Dramatic Forms Used: Episodic (consisting of separate parts of events), Non-linear

- related to beliefs about dreaming - past present + future intertwined always
happening all at once, Non-naturalistic (Themes, emotions and sets represented
though symbolism), Uses an eclectic range of performance styles, Blurred narrative

• Although it is non-linear it still has a shotgun narrative. Each individual story while
they have a shared experience show that each are affected in there own way.
 SETTING + PROPS
• Setting - the set is minimal with focus on props and use of lighting to create
different spaces. Greater focus on acts as storytellers and represents a
deprived environment

• Props - The institutional iron beds - lack individuality, represent conformity

and rigidity + an authoritarian environment. Jimmy’s bed represents the time
he spent in prison

• Suitcases - represent the continual movement, of life on the run, lap of a

sense of home

• Shirley Knitting - represents the children she lost and learnt to prove
comfort for. The unravelling of it is symbolic of the gift she will never give
(her role as mother being taken away)

• Bell Control - regimented time, a sign of the institutionalised

• Pillows - soft and nurturing but often found on the floor

 TECHNIQUES + CONVENTIONS

• Monologues • Direct address

• Chorus • Chanting

• Spilt Focus • Song

• Flashback/Flash forward • Music

• Narration • Sound Effect

• Rhyme • Off stage Voice

• Storytelling
 MONOLOGUES LIGHTING
• “Sandy’s sorry of the • “Anne’s white parents are
Mungee” - representation represented by shadows falling
fo sandy’s storytelling as a onto a white sheet” The use of
way fo comforting the shadows to represent how they
others and himself and also are there but not really present -
transporting them away also represented through them
from the place they are not being able to hear each
other
• “A can of Peas” (p 19-20) -
through the monologue he
is able to convey his anger
towards the welfare

•
 CHORUS SPLIT FOCUS
• “The chorus crowd around her and
try to snatch the photo album for
her”(p 17) - the chorus represents
the welfare and government trying
to deny Shirley rights to family and
culture

• “one by one all the others going her

on the bed and they all make calls” -
the chorus represents the community
that being aboriginal provides them
with, the support they give each
other and how they become a family
in times of need. However when
Shirley is then isolated again at the
end of it, it shows nothing is quite
the same as a family.
 NARRATION FLASHBACK
•
• Jimmy flashback of when he
was taken (p 27) - once he is
told his mother is alive some
of his memories are restored
- his mother is such a big part
of his identity
 RHYME STORYTELLING
• “Sandy’s sorry of the
Mungee” - representation
•
fo sandy’s storytelling as a
way fo comforting the
others and himself and also
transporting them away
from the place they are
 DIRECT ADDRESS CHANTING
• (p, 1) “they look out into the • “can you keep a secret
audience, acknowledging promise not to tell?” - the se
those they recognise, their fo chant juxtaposes the
eyes searching the audience heaviness of the situation
for compassion and provokes thought in the
audience
• Shirley addresses the
audience (p 19) - to make
the audience fell almost a
sense fo guilt and to really
confront them.

•
 SONG MUSIC
• “She’s humming rock-a-bye • Ominous music heard
baby” - represents her
innocence and security she
has lost as she comforts the
doll who she views as her self

•
 SOUND EFFECTS OFF STAGE VOICES
• Sounds of thunder and rain (p 4) • “the voice-over goes into an
set an ominous/sad tone of the echoing sound that goes loud
scene. Pathetic fallacy and soft” (p 5) creates
dynamics and tension.
• Sounds of crickets (p 7) sets the
scene to be outside even though • Jimmy’s Mother sits off
the props around them say they stage…reading a letter (p
are still in the institution. 16)- represents the
disconnection between them
THEMES
 HOME
• Each character speaks about their home and their desire to go back home. Stolen is set in
Cranby's Children’s home. The ideas of home are closely intertwined with ideas of family. The
theme is established in the open lines of ‘Arriving’

• Each character has a different attitude and relationship with home

• Ruby: declares she dense need ’no home of me own, got enough to do’ (p 1) as the play
unfolds it come clear that it is what she need most. She releases the same line on (p 35)
but it has tragic overtones

• Anne: experiences a safe, comfortable home in her childhood, her sense of beginning
charges when she learn of heritage

• Shirley: emphasises the line between family and home ‘ home is where the heart is’ (p 35)
the house where she lived ‘for eighteen years’ is less of a home than a place that is ’closer
to Kate dan the baby’

• Sandy: Carries his home with him suggesting he is independent of a particular place but his
words are transformed by his experiences. By the end of the play he believes his home to
be the place he was born.

• Jimmy: ‘I wanna go home’ (p 15)

 FAMILY
• 100 000 people where affected by the removal of children.

• Children were told they were unwanted, rejected or orphans

• The children’s sense of belonging to a family is maintained through memory and

desire. The longing for family (mothers in particular)

• Ruby’s singing for her mother is shown through her recurring cry ‘Where are you?’

• Shirley’s longing for family is shown by her desire to be with her children ‘I have a
lighter and a grand daughter … that’s all that matters’ (p 35)

• Jimmy: ‘I don’t even know what having a mother feels like’ (p 30)

• Sandy:

• Anne:

• Family I also closely associated with the characters identity

 IDENTITY
• Identity was stifled by a system that denied the contact int their culture Denied
language, names and culture. Identity meant something different to each character:

• Shirley: defined by her family ‘thats all the matters’ (p 35)

• Jimmy: his relationship to his mother identifies him as an aboriginal man ‘one of
Nancy’s boys’ (p 27) When he learns this he reclaims knowledge of his name and
identity ‘ Willy Wajurri and I’ve got a mother?’ (p 27)

• Sandy: Identity to do with his Aboriginal heritage and where he is from ‘my
people are form the desert’ (p 22) like Jimmy identity is stirringly related to
memories of his mother.

• Anne: Identity is questioned bu both her black and white families ‘ who do you
think you are? (p 29) Anne tried to base her identity on aspects of both her
upbringing and ancestry

• Ruby:
 THE ASSIMILATION POLICY

• This removal policy had the power to remover children without

parental or court consent.

• The policy systematically eroded the cultural, physical, social and

emotional fabric of indigenous society

• Their confusion of identity and loss of family avoider form the

assimilation

• ‘We’ve given you everything - a home, an education , a future’ (p

28) shows they thought they were doing the best for the children

• Anne: ‘I don’t know where I belong anymore…’ (p 34)

 RACISM

• The stolen generation and aboriginal people generally suffer form

various forms of racism. This lead to severs depression and social
problems

• Jimmy’s sorry and experiences show how events could take over you
life in a horrible way. ‘Who’s back there?… you black bastards! I’ll call
the cops’ (p 20) ‘Hey boong, go back to where you belong..’(p 33) ‘i’ve
been a thug and a thief but I‘ve never stolen anyone’s soul..’ (p 34)

• Jimmy: ‘[to himself] Black dog… scum of the earth… Savage… Filthy
black boong’ (p 33) Just before he commits suicide

• Stolen is set when the ‘international prohibition of racial discrimination

was recognised (1950-1960)
 SEXUAL, PHYSICAL + EMOTIONAL ABUSE

• 1/6 of children who were institutionalised reported physical

assault and punishments.

• Ruby and Jimmy suffer able and were made to promise not to tell
anyone. They receive gifts as means to make them silent. Physical
abuse is represented in the kids once they leave the children’s
home. ‘He have her a doll. What else did ya do?’ Ruby: ‘I
promised not to tell’ (p 8)

• Ruby is beaten by several figures at the opening of ‘Ruby’s

descent into Madness’ (pp 24, 25) It is shown by stage directions
that the real damage is mental ‘ She falls to the floor; where she
huddles, rocking.’ ‘Ruby wipes at her body obsessively’
 IGNORANCE, DENIAL + DECEPTION
• The characters are caught up in a network of trickery and deception. The system
denies them knowledge of, or contact with, there aboriginal families or culture.

• Ruby’s admission that she ‘promised not to tell’ (pp 8, 15) represents the
silencing.

• Testimonies in the bringing them home report show how lying and dicing were
destroying links between families. One testimony recalls ‘we were told tar our
mother was an alcoholic and that she was a prostitute and she didn’t care about
us’

• This is reflected in stolen by Jimmy’s inability to community directly with her

mother ‘ whens my mom gonna comes for me?’ Jimmy’s mother: ‘We habit had
ay replies from all of our letters’ Voice: ‘Your mums not coming. She’s dead’

• Shirley’s story shows how powerful bureaucratic systems ar label to deter any
admission of the true state of affairs ‘You people have been putting me on hold
for twenty-seven years…’ (p 22)
• The filing cabinet is symbolism of this - the slamming shit of the
filing cabinet door is a dramatic metaphor for the silencing and
deferral practised by government.

• Cranby Children’s home converted to luxury apartments (pp

31-32) is symbolism of the denial that they ever existed as wells
the cabinet is empty as if the children were never there.

• In ‘Anne’s told she’s Aboriginal’ the idea of what is best for her is
a complete denial of her aboriginal identity ‘No one need ever
know’ (p 14) Her feelings are betrayed through the line ‘ I want to
know why you didn’t tell about this before’

• Feelings of alienation and bewilderment are felt by all the

character largely generated by white denial, ignorance and racism
 STORYTELLING, SURVIVAL + HOPE

• Jimmy who stops fighting, expressed hope that others will continue to
fight ‘Brother, don’t give up fighting, don’t let it happen again’ (p 34)

• The desire to be reunited with family keeps alive a glimmer of hope

and is shown when Shirley is reunited wth her family in ‘Shirley’s come
full circle’ (p 35).

• Sandy’s sense of optimism had to do with his relationship to place

rather than family.

• Sandy’s ability to survive is also kinked with the value he places on

story tell as a form of cultural memory and as as source of community.
His stories are not so much an escape from the institutionalisation as a
critical comment on it.
NEIGHBOURHOOD
WATCH
 INTRODUCTION
• Neighbourhood watch was written by Lally Katz in

• It tells the story of a young woman, Catherine, and her friendship

wiht her neighbour Ana, an 80 year old Hungarian-Australian
widow.Around them swirl the mess of contemporary life, absent
boyfriends, annoying housemate adn acquaintances that just
won’t take a hint.

•
 CONTEXT
DONEC QUIS NUNC
 SETTING
DONEC QUIS NUNC
SET DESIGN + PROPS
DONEC QUIS NUNC
 MEMORY
DONEC QUIS NUNC
 SYMBOLISM
DONEC QUIS NUNC
CHARACTERS
 ANA
• An eighty year old Hungarian woman.

• She is storing determined, courageous and hardworking woman. She

lost her father, husband and baby as well as being imprisoned in
Yugoslavia, Italy, France and then going to Australia as a refugee.

• Ana I still caught up in the war, and believe everyone is put to get
her. She refuses to become dependent on anyone to the point were
she refuses to go to hospice her response “That vill not be
necessary….All her life Ana been the prisoner and now Ana should
be the prisoner even in her death? No not Ana…” (p 66)

• Catherine tries to tell her “You’re still at war. In your mind, you’re still
at war” (p 76) Her mistrust of other people and belief that she is
better to be along is shown in the repetition of “Solo Una Ana” (p
68)
 CATHERINE

• A woman in her late twenties, who is very fragile and still grieving
the loss of her ex-boyfriend.

• She is very disconnected to the world, and is unemployed,

probably from fear of failure. She has obsessive compulsive
tendencies and eating disorders.

• She finds herself engrossed by Ans’s stories of Hungary and

becomes very close friends with Ana.
 KEN
• In his early thirties and Catherines housemate

• He is a writer working on a film though spends most of his time

playing computer games - World of Warcraft

• He is a diabetic who gets quite sick and has to go back to his

parents house.

• Ken is attracted to Catherine and tries his best to look after her
and make sure she is eating, trying to find a job etc. HE becomes
alarmed and concerned when he fins out she has been staying at
Ana’s house.
 KATRINA + JOVANKA
• Katrine is another neighbour, who is in her fifties and away
manages to keep up her appearances

• Living by herself she is paranoid about security adn has cameras

set up everywhere. She ends up having a Brin tumour cut out, adn
biomes very forgetful and confused as has to rely on a neighbour
she’d normally not make time for.

• Jovanka is an elderly Serbian women who visits Ana a lot. She is

very insistent and determined woman continually trying to be
friends with Ana although Ana shuts her down every time.

• Ana is suspicious of Jovanka saying “She spying to laugh on me…

she is the snake, I have known many Jovanka
 MARTIN

• Martin is Catherine’s ex-boyfriend.

• We discover mid way into the play that he committed sucked two
year earlier. Which is what caused Catherine to become so
disconnected to the world. He appears in scenes without being
revealed to us that he is dead, as Catherine stills sees him in her
memories haunting her.

•
THEMES
 ISOLATION
• All of the characters are isolated an lonely in some way:

• Catherine by the memory of her ex-boyfriend

• Ken by isolated himself in a world computer games

• Ana is angry and hostile to others, causing her to push away all friends and does not
have any family left.

• Kristina never gets to see her family and lives by herself adn Jovanka is rejected by Ana.

• None of them seem able reach out and get help on their own, but as relationships
betweens them grow especially between Catherine and Ana the characters are able to
come out of their isolation.

• This isolation is a reflection fo society today “We are leading more crowded lives, but
slowly losing our sense of connection with each other, in a society with less connection,
more alienation, and more loneliness” -Tanner (2003)

• Neighbourhoods especially in cities no longer have the community spirit that was very
much a part if the Australian landscape.
 WAR (AND THE AFTERMATH)
• Ana is haunted by the war and particularly her life after the war. She
was a young girl when her father was killed by a bomb whilst at
work.

• Throughout the play Ana tells stories of her life in the war and the
audience is transported to Hungary or whoever the story is set.
Through these stories we are able to understand why Ana is the way
she is and Catherine is able to learn the lessons she took from them.

• Ana’s experiments in the war deeply imprinted her personality and

the way she behaves and interacts with others throughout the play.

• This is shown when Catherine tells Ana “You’re still at war. In your
mind, you’re still at war” (p 76) but also through her inability to trust
the people around her. “I have many enemy” (p 13)
 FRIENDSHIP
• The play is ultimately about friendship and the unlikely friendship that
we find in others. Catherine and ken are housemates, who are friends
but is not a very strong friendship.

• When Ana strikes conversation with Catherine she draws her in with
her stories. Ana makes Catherine confront her naivety, fins her
intuition, not be so trusting of and helps her overcome her fixation on
her ex-boyfriend.

• In turn Catherine helps Ana to trust people and helps her rebuild a
friendship with Jovanka, she teaches her to not be at war in her mind
anymore, and we see just before she dies her open up to new
opportunities of friendship. “Ya, I come for von coffee.” (p 79)

• Towards the end Catherine and ken also restore their friendship “Hey,
happy Obama, my friend” (p 81)
LOVE
SEEKING REFUGE/IMPRISONMENT
DONEC QUIS NUNC
 GRIEF
DONEC QUIS NUNC
STUDIES IN DRAMA
AND THEATRE