Download Australian Indigenous theatre: achieving Reconciliation through

Australian Indigenous theatre: achieving Reconciliation through storytelling
Storytelling has always been an important part of the Australian Indigenous culture.
Australian Aborigines traditionally tell Dreaming stories to pass on cultural beliefs about the origins
of the earth and to teach young generations about how to live on the land and respect the social
order. Stories allow an Indigenous person to know where he/she belongs. But when the Australian
continent was colonized in the 18th century, white settlers took possession of the land and failed to
acknowledge its previous ownership and oral Indigenous cultures. New stories appeared with
colonization. The settlers wrote their own mythology as they tried to erase all signs of black
ownership of the land.
However, the tradition of Indigenous storytelling was not lost and, as Indigenous Australian
and European cultures met and mingled, it evolved and changed. What we call Australian
Indigenous theatre developed in the 1970s, along with the movement for Indigenous civil rights
throughout the country. Following the 1967 referendum, Indigenous people in Australia were
included in the country's census for the first time and became Australian citizens. While students
and freedom riders toured Australia to promote civil rights, Indigenous playwrights started using
Western theatre as a new form of storytelling which could reach the non-Indigenous Australian
population. Indigenous theatre is therefore a mix of cultures brought about by colonization in the
18th century. The early playwrights -Kevin Gilbert who wrote the first mainstream Indigenous play
in 1968, The Cherry Pickers1, or Jack Davis- were firstly political activists who declared that they
would rather fight through the theatre.
The plays they wrote were in English but incorporated several elements of the Indigenous culture
(the recurrent motif of the Rainbow Serpent, which is at the core of the Dreaming, for example) and
passages in Indigenous languages. Indigenous theatre is therefore a hybrid genre which reflects the
variety of what it means to be Aboriginal today, but although its forms and contents have diversified
over the years to include musicals or one-man/woman shows, it remains a political form of art
which is a response to colonialism and its aftermath. This explains why Indigenous theatre was
closely linked to the policy of Reconciliation which spanned the 1990 decade. This movement was
officially started by the Australian government in 1991 with the creation of the Council for
Aboriginal Reconciliation and involved:
Raising awareness and knowledge of indigenous history and culture, changing attitudes that
are often based on myths and misunderstanding, and encouraging action where everyone plays
their part in building a better relationship between all members of our community.2
The arts have always been seen as a means to promote Reconciliation in Australia. Very early on,
the government emphasized their importance and their power to help Indigenous people improve
their standard of living, make their cultures known and encourage interactions with non-Indigenous
Australians. Indigenous theatre was therefore at the core of the process of Reconciliation: it could
help lift the veil of stereotypes and make ideas an people more visible, both for Indigenous people
who use theatre to retrieve an identity they sometimes lost touch with as they were separated from
their communities or moved to cities, and for non-Indigenous people who have an opportunity to
see and hear the other side of the story.
Theatre: a tool for reconciliation and empowerment…
The Reconciliation process was marked by several important reports and decisions which
triggered a stronger interest in Indigenous culture and issues in Australia. The 1992 Mabo decision
1 GILBERT, Kevin, The Cherry Pickers. Canberra: Burrambinga Books 1988
2 Australian Government/Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre, AUSTRAC Reconciliation Plan 2010.
http://www.austrac.gov.au/reconciliation.html
by the High Court of Australia was a major turning point in the way Australians looked at their
history and at Indigenous people. The concept of Terra Nullius on which colonization was based
was abandoned. Rather than being regarded as an empty land, Australia was recognized as
belonging to its first inhabitants. This land rights decision allowed Indigenous people to reclaim
lands of which they were dispossessed in the 18th century. This highly symbolic -if not always
practical- change was followed in 1997 by the Bringing Them Home3 report which revealed the
impact of the removal of children from their Indigenous families until the 1970s. The word
'genocide' was used to describe the policy and its consequences. Finally, an investigation of the
treatment of Indigenous people in jail revealed an abnormally high number of deaths in custody.
The general Australian public was confronted with uncomfortable truths about Indigenous history
and living conditions. The reports created a greater degree of transparency between Indigenous and
non-Indigenous people. They also worked on sentimentalizing Indigenous issues, on emphasizing a
common humanity and Australian-ness which generated a desire to learn more about each other and
to create practical reconciliation. This movement obviously reached the arts, and therefore theatre.
However, Indigenous playwrights did not wait for the movement to become official to evoke
reconciliation in their plays. The woes of the Indigenous people and the necessity to learn how to
live with white people were present in the very first plays written in the 1970s. The aim of these
plays was to tell the truth about Indigenous history and about what it meant to be an Aboriginal
living in Australia at that time. It was -and still often is- about telling a story not recorded in history
books. There was a necessity to de-scribe4 the official texts, the colonial version of the conquest of
Australia which obliterated the battle Indigenous people engaged in to defend their lands, and the
massacres which resulted from such resistance. Theatre was also a means to reassert the Indigenous
oral culture which was erased by colonization, and to maintain the tradition of storytelling which is
the basis of Indigenous culture.
Instead of fighting politically to have their stories heard, several artists chose the stage. They saw
their art as an alternative to violence. The confrontation between the two cultures which took place
during the civil rights movement was a difficult one. But theatre was a milder way to approach the
issue of reconciliation: the fact of staging this relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous
Australians helped create a distance with reality which could help reach some truths. The technique
of storytelling relies on the introduction of characters, of a plot and a narrative point of view.
Although stories contain truths, they are mediated and can therefore be less threatening or simply
better understood. When an audience watches a play, the process of fictionalization can help reach
some knowledge which one usually ignores or does not see. The same techniques which have been
used for centuries by Aboriginal people to pass on sacred knowledge were integrated into western
theatre to teach both white and black Australians about Aboriginal culture and history.
The first plays integrated both Western and Indigenous elements. Jack Davis's plays, for example,
combined very realistic details of the life of an average Aboriginal family on a reserve and
references to the Dreaming -a traditional dancer, didgeridoo music and Indigenous words. This
combination of realism and Dreaming is still often present in more recent plays. These first plays
presented a white audience with the well-known frame of Western theatre while introducing foreign
elements: not only was the Dreaming quite a vague concept for non-Indigenous Australians: the
mere representation of Indigenous everyday life was something most of them were -and still areunfamiliar with. Indigenous theatre became a way to expand white Australians' vision of history and
reality in contemporary Australia. It still attempts to give another perspective on the world because
3 Bringing them Home : Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Children from Their Families, April 1997
4TIFFIN, Chris et LAWSON, Allan, De-scribing Empire: Colonialism and Textuality, Routledge, London, 1994
the vision non-Indigenous people have is seen as incomplete. Indigenous plays were described as
counter-monuments5 which question the way white Australians understand not only history but also
time and space. The audience is invited to see beyond what they know. When watching an
Indigenous play, white Australians can find themselves in an unstable position as they are not
familiar with Indigenous languages, humor or with the symbols used. They are asked to look at
everything with a fresh eye. For example, in Jack Davies' The Dreamers6, the traditional rainbow
serpent used as part of the setting both represented a geographical element the white audience was
familiar with -the actual Swan river which runs across Western Australia- and a symbolic element of
the Dreaming. Thus the audience was reminded that for Indigenous people, the landscape is not
only what it first appears to be.
The educational aim of these plays went even further as they attempted to reverse the parts
traditionally attributed to Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. In Jack Davies' Kullark7, for
example, when playing white colonizers, black actors all wore identical white masks (reminiscent
of the American tradition of Blackface) to show the audience how white Australians tend to think of
Aborigines as one instead of understanding the diversity of their cultures, languages or history, and
to give them a taste of what it feels like to be treated like this.
Theatre allowed Indigenous stories to be heard in an Australia where white presence and culture
dominate and are still considered the norm. But these stories were also directed at Indigenous
people themselves. Indeed, theatre was always seen as a way for Aboriginal Australians to reclaim
their history and identity, to empower themselves through the use of their languages , through the
re-enaction of traditional ceremonies and continuation of the tradition of storytelling. This is a vital
part of Indigenous theatre because many members of the Stolen Generations or their descendants
have lost contact with their communities and culture, because urban Indigenous people today are no
longer familiar with traditional ways and because white stereotypes about Indigenous people have
been forced upon them for many years and have slowly eroded their sense of pride in their identity.
This search for pride and belonging is at the core of many plays from the 1970s to the most recent
ones, one of which was written by Indigenous playwright Tammy Anderson. In I don't wanna play
house8, she explains how difficult it is to find her place in the Australian society:
My dad's a blackfella and my mum's white and my mum gets called a coon fucker cause she's got
black kids. The blackfellas call her a mole cause she's white. So we don't know where we fit in.
For Indigenous actors and playwrights, plays represent a way to affirm that they survived. For a
long time, Indigenous people were considered to be doomed to extinction due to their inability to
adapt to the white man's world. Playwright Deborah Mailman described her work as vital:
What can I do but perform...These are my people's stories. They need to be told.
This need is the reason why several all-Indigenous companies such as Yirra Yaakin in Perth,
Kooemba Jdarra in Brisbane or Ilbijerri in Melbourne were created in the 1990s to educate their
own people. The director of Sydney's Indigenous Moogahlin theatre company, Frederick
Copperwaite, emphasized the importance of theatre for the Indigenous population of Sydney. More
than simple entertainment or art, he explained that storytelling in theatre was a way to teach them
about their own culture, to revitalise their identity, to train new young artists, in short, to empower
the Indigenous community.
…but whose Reconciliation are we talking about?
5 TOMPKINS, Joanne, Unsettling Space: Contestations in Contemporary Australian Theatre, Basingstoke: Palgrave
Mcmillan, 2006. , p. 47
6 DAVIS, Jack, The Dreamers. Paddington, N.S.W.: Currency Press, 1984
7 DAVIS, Jack, Kullark. Paddington, N.S.W.: Currency Press, 1984
8ANDERSON, Tammy," I Don't Wanna Play House" in Black Inside: 6 Indigenous Plays from Victoria. Sydney:
Currency Press 2002
Theatre and art in general are undeniably important tools to foster a better understanding
between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Nevertheless, there are limits to the power of
theatre to achieve genuine reconciliation.
It is necessary, at this point, to question the meaning of the term ‘Reconciliation’ which has been so
extensively used in Australia from the 1990s onwards. Helen Gilbert explained how ambiguous the
concept is:
[There is] a tension between the word's two primary meanings - to settle differences or
to become resigned to a situation – (…) The political rhetoric of ‘being reconciled with’
has been regularly translated into policies of ‘reconciliation to’. (...) Reconciliation on
whose terms? This is an issue Aboriginal theatre has broached in a variety of ways
since the early 1990s.9
Although Indigenous people were the victims of colonization and were dispossessed of their lands,
they are the ones who are asked to accept the ‘white’ Australian way of life. Whether consciously or
unconsciously, the process of Reconciliation is often led by non-Indigenous Australians who need to
come to terms with the wrongs of colonial history and to relieve a guilty conscience.
Even though there is a noticeable rise of interest for Indigenous culture in today’s Australia, we can
wonder what degree of change in the stories of their nation non-Indigenous Australians are truly
ready to accept.
First of all, theatre is a medium which does not reach a large portion of the Australian population. It
is still regarded as quite an elitist cultural pastime and the audience attending Indigenous plays will
tend to already be aware and sympathetic of Indigenous issues. Nevertheless, non-Indigenous
spectators often have expectations which can prevent true Reconciliation: some spectators are not
always ready to leave their comfort zone and witness the exposition of violent truths on stage. A
survey conducted to help the indigenous company Kooemba Jdarra develop asked potential
spectators what they would look for in an Indigenous play. One of them answered:
If I’m going to go somewhere I want to make sure I am going to be entertained. I don’t want to have
something rammed down my throat. I don’t want to be really sad like this horrible person who
perpetrated evil against these people. It’s really nothing I’ve done.
Another common expectation is the presence of traditional Indigenous elements in a play such as a
didgeridoo player or references to the Dreaming. Non-Indigenous audiences are sometimes less
interested in more modern plays which do not correspond to their image of what an Aboriginal play
should be. Traditional elements still are what define Aboriginality for a majority of non-Indigenous
Australians today: dot painting and boomerangs are featured on Australian airline Qantas’ uniforms
and international tourists are invited to experience a return to a more natural state as they explore
the red centre and meet ‘real’ Indigenous people. A lot of non-Indigenous people have never met
Aboriginal Australians and hold on to their own idea of what an authentic Indigenous person looks
like and behaves. Therefore, a non-Indigenous audience will tend to look for non-threatening
authentic stories and representations, and will not always be open to different visions of
Aboriginality. As playwright Richard Franckland explains:
Your genre is black. It’s not drama, it’s not romance, it’s not horror. It’s aboriginal.
This biased understanding of a play can prevent the achievement of true reconciliation which
involves overcoming stereotypes and considering Indigenous performers as individual artists rather
than as Aborigines.
The power non-Indigenous Australians have to define what Reconciliation should mean not only
impacts their understanding of a play but can also limit the freedom of Indigenous artists who need
important financial support to produce their plays. When they decide to perform for their
9 GILBERT, Helen et LO, Jacqueline, "Indigenizing Australian Theatre" in Performance and Cosmopolitics: Crosscultural Transactions in Australasia. Basingstoke: Palgrave, Macmillan, 2007, p. 56-57
Indigenous communities, companies reach out for people who very often are not familiar with
theatre and/or who do not have the financial means to attend a play. Thus Indigenous companies
play for free or sell very cheap tickets. The problem is that public support tends to go to plays which
tell positive stories of Reconciliation or which tackle specific social issues. In order to survive,
artists often have to become social workers and theatre becomes instrumentalized. For example, the
play Chopped Liver by Ilbijerri was financed by the Victorian Department of Health to warn
Indigenous communities against the risk of Hepatitis C.
During the 1990s, a few successful Indigenous plays were chosen by the press or by politicians to
promote the Reconciliation process when others more controversial productions received little
attention. The musical Bran Nue Dae10 which was made into a movie in 2010 was praised for its
optimism and for delivering a message of reconciliation. A comedy about an Indigenous teenager
from Western Australian embarking on a journey of self-discovery, this play also dealt with several
serious issues such as land rights or the Stolen Generations. However, these aspects of the play were
overlooked by critics who focused on its happy ending bringing white and black Australians
together. Helen Gilbert commented on the way Bran Nue Dae was turned into a national landmark
for Reconciliation:
[The play] risks co-option by a white Australian society whose current post-colonial position as
both colonizer and colonized makes the project of reconciliation particularly urgent.
Is it possible to talk about true reconciliation when Indigenous artists cannot always feel free to
experiment without fearing they will lose their audience or financial support? If playwrights and
actors are pressured into helping the process of Reconciliation, then a transparent relationship
cannot develop between black and white Australians. Storytelling no longer is a freeing tool if once
again the white Australian majority has the power to select which stories are appropriate or not.
Working together
Where Reconciliation is concerned, the problem often lies with the fact that Indigenous and
non-Indigenous Australians often strive to truly connect. White audiences can have difficulties
understanding the diversity of Indigenous experiences in today’s Australia while Indigenous artists
often have to make compromises and decide whether they will rather focus on a non-Indigenous
audience or on their communities. Perhaps true reconciliation is not only about a white audience
hearing the other side of the story, but rather about focusing on putting the two groups on an equal
footing by promoting collaborations. Reconciliation should be seen as a process involving both
Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians creating new stories together.
Theatre is a flexible medium –contrary to history which fixes events on paper. An actor, just like a
story teller, asks for and needs the participation of his/her audience. A play is a constant interaction
and this is especially true of Indigenous plays. Indeed, although they display foreign elements for a
white audience, they invite spectators to enter this universe and to become familiar with it. For
example, in 2010, the Sydney Moogahlin company organized a festival which took place in
Redfern, the aboriginal suburb of the city. The audience was invited to walk from one spot to
another to discover the Block11 and to take part in the different scenes which were staged:
Indigenous women performing a traditional dance invited non-Indigenous female spectators to join
in the ritual.
The interaction between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people can also take the form of a
catharsis. For example, in the play Stolen12, the stories of Indigenous children taken from their
families were told before the actors -who were also victims of the removal policy- started a
10 CHI, Jimmy, Bran Nue Dae. Sydney and Broome: Currency Press and Magabala Books, 1991
11 The Block is the name given to the Redfern area where a lot of Indigenous people in Sydney live.
12 HARRISSON, Jane, Stolen. Sydney: Currency Press 1998. Sydney: Currency Press 1996
discussion with the audience at the end of the play. The aim was obviously to share an experience
and to grieve together in order to move forward, rather than to separate the actors from the audience
and create an atmosphere of guilt.
Theatre, then, is a space of interactions. Indigenous theatre has always been a blend of several
influences, as previously mentioned: Indigenous artists use the Western form of theatre which did
not exist in Australia prior to the arrival of European settlers, but they transform it as they introduce
Indigenous contents and symbols and create what was described as ‘magic realism’13. Indigenous
theatre is therefore, in itself, an example of reconciliation of European and Indigenous cultures.
What we can observe today is that, contrary to what stereotypes show, Aboriginality is very diverse
and hybrid, and this variety may well be the best answer to the binary distinction between
colonizers and colonized, between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians today. The stage is a
safe, in-between space, where both groups can meet and develop new common stories.
More and more Indigenous plays deal with non-Indigenous topics or are collaborations between
black and white Australian playwrights and actors. For example, Box the Pony14 was written by
Indigenous actress Leah Purcell and non-Indigenous playwright Scott Rankin. This one-woman
show constantly moves from one culture to another as Leah tells the story of her Indigenous
childhood while dancing to the 1974 hit Kung Fu Fighting by Carl Douglas. Just like plays use
different forms and contents, theatre can be seen as a space of uncertainty and diversity: a gap
between the script of a play and its performance always exists and each performance differs from
another as the actors work with their audience to create their work. The story told may not be the
most important element. It is rather the process of storytelling which involves communication
between teller and audience which is enriching.
Similarly, Reconciliation, just like theatre, is a process. Although achieving Reconciliation involves
facing general historical facts, it also means understanding Aboriginality in its diversity, through
various personal stories. Aboriginality can also be regarded as a work in progress.
Indigenous writer Marcia Langton explains how it is created:
Aboriginality is remade over and over again in a process of dialogue, imagination, representation
and interpretation.15
Helen Gilbert calls it:
A process of continual becoming. This explanation [of Aboriginality] does not seek to locate an
authentic culture but instead recognizes the specificity of various representations of a cultural
construct.16
Just like the theatrical space allows the creation of another reality, a story can convey
important messages in a mediated way. Beyond official reports and events such as the apology to
the Stolen Generations, Reconciliation means personal interaction with people in their diversity.
Theatre creates less threatening spaces for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians to
communicate and build new stories together. The stories told on stage help white Australians see
Indigenous culture and history in a different and more personal light. But these stories are not ends
in themselves. They allow the creation of other stories as relationships between playwrights, actors
and audiences are created in the process of storytelling. It it these new stories which form the basis
13MAUFORT, Marc, "Listen to Them Cry Out Their Dreaming: Black Inside and the Search for an Aboriginal Stage
Aesthetic" in Antipodes, 20.1, June 2006, p. 56-57
14 RANKIN, Scott et PURCELL, Leah, Box the Pony. Sydney, N.S.W.: Hodder Headline, 1999
15 LANGTON, Marcia quoted by GILBERT, Helen, "Reconciliation? Aboriginality and Australian Theatre in the
1990's in Our Australian Theatre in the 1990's. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1998, p. 77
16 GILBERT, Helen, ibid, p. 77
for a different relationship between black and white Australians and which can help the process of
Reconciliation.