Stolen – Jane Harrison

This play this week was a really different read to plays I’ve been reading for this course. I know I’ve been reading and blogging on Australian plays but for some reason it was only this week that it dawned on me to read an Aboriginal play. I feel like a dirty white person. Of course if our theme is Australian plays through the years, it’s so important to tell an Aboriginal story, and the play ‘Stolen’ is a play about a huge moment in Australian history, that I’m sure most people would rather forget. It brings to the front the horrible and unforgivable way the government stole children from Aboriginal families and the effects that changed these children’s lives forever.

There are five characters in the play, which also double up and play various roles. Each child has a story their own, how they were taken from their families and put into a children’s home. Each character has their own journey, one girl is adopted by a caring white family, another girl is abused and hurt, another girl falls pregnant and is in search of her children. There are two young boys, one is searching for home and a sense of belonging and the other is a naughty boy who acts out in fear. We are shown through the characters lives, jumping from their adult lives, to their childhood to their adolescent lives. At each stage of their lives we’re shown their frustrations and the confusion of being taken away, and treat terribly.

Jane Harrison has written this play beautifully. The care she has taken with each child to depict their story and also the care she has taken to uphold the Aboriginal culture, and the dreamtime stories that make the children feel safe. As well as keeping the Aboriginal culture alive, she hasn’t totally disgraced white people, she has a caring white family for the youngest girl, which illustrates the good that they thought they were doing.

This play would be a fantastic inclusion for our production. As I mentioned it’s part of Australia’s history, and these are the stories that define Australia and the culture that our society has created and built. This was bleak time in Australia’s history, although it’s important that we show the good the bad and the horrible to our audiences, to show the real culture and development of our country. 

5 'Children' in the Children's home with their suitcases

Julia!