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This script is part of the Australian Plays Education Resources Collection
Stolen tells of five young Aboriginal children forcibly removed from their parents, brought up in a repressive children’s home and trained for domestic service and other menial jobs. Segregated from society from their earliest years, not all of them successfully manage their lives when released into the outside world.
The pain, poignancy and sheer desperation of their lives is seen through the children’s own eyes as they struggle to make sense of a world where they have been told to forget their families, their homes and their language. This tender and moving story, awash with childlike humour, brings the tragic history of the Stolen Generations to the Australian stage.
Features an introduction by Wesley Enoch on directing the first production of Stolen. {{PlayboxLogo}}
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Male | Unspecified | 3 to 5 minutes
Starts on page 10
EXTRACT: ..the elders waited for the Mungee, and when they sensed his presence they threw magic powdered bone all over him. It stuck in his hair and on his skin and he couldn't scrub it off. The Mungee was turned into a pale skin and that was his punishment. He would never be able to sneak into the camp to steal the children because he would be seen. And the people would know. And the people would never forget. ..Ruby, I gotta go or the matron will skin me, but remember, it's not the dark you need to be afraid of.
Male | Unspecified | under 3 minutes
Starts on page 22
EXTRACT: She used to say that when you walk on the sand, the wind can blow away your footsteps, like you had never made them, and the earth would become pure again. The sand could heal itself. The land where my people come from is covered in red sand and in the old days, the women, to try and stop the white men from raping them, would shove sand inside themselves. Anything to stop the men from raping them, anything. And that's what my mother did, but it didn't stop them and so I came along.
Adult themesFemale | Unspecified | under 3 minutes
Starts on page 35
EXTRACT: I'll tell you what heals. Holding that itty-bitty little baby. Having Kate call me Mum. The first time she did, right - we were in the hospital - she said, 'Mum, here, hold Tamara for me' - and I didn't even look up! [Softly] No one's ever called me Mum. Then a funny thing happened. The nurse came up and said, 'I'll take the baby now', and I said, 'No, you won't', and I burst into tears like an old fool.
In 1997, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (now the Australian Human Rights Commission) released its report, 'Bringing them home: National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families'. To assist students' understanding of the issues surrounding this report, a range of resources and support materials are made available for download. This includes a lesson plan for Jane Harrison's play, 'Stolen'.
"JANE Harrison' s Stolen ends in a breakdown of the fourth wall between its young cast and the audience."
Available for purchase: $16.95. Designed to help secondary English students understand and analyse the text. This comprehensive study guide to Jane Harrison's play contains detailed character and chapter analysis and explores genre, structure, themes and language. Essay questions and sample answers help to prepare students for creating written responses to the text.
Compiled by director, Leah Purcell, for the 2011 season of Stolen at the Cremorne Theatre, presented by The Aboriginal Centre for the Performing Arts (ACPA) and QPAC in association with Bungabura Productions.
"This play desires to tell the truth. The truth told by aborigines is different from the white version of history."
Commentry by Juliet Rowan in advance of the 2002 presentation of 'Stolen' as part of the Tokyo International Performing Arts Festival.
Lois O'Donoghue was born in 1932 in a remote Aboriginal community. She never knew her white father and, at the age of two, was taken away from her mother, who she was not to see for 33 years. Includes video clips and teaching resources. 'Lowitja O’Donoghue' is an episode of 'Australian Biography Series 3', produced in 1994.
"Stolen gives flesh and blood to a policy that has impacted on the overwhelming majority of Aboriginal families."
"One of the most impressive aspects of Jane Harrison's Stolen... is the way it weaves common elements of the stories of many into a powerful narrative featuring just five protagonists."
Teachers' Notes for 'Stolen' by Jane Harrison, produced by Belvoir.
Lesson ideas for 'Stolen' by Jane Harrison.
The preparation of this document was commissioned by Drama Australia to foster access and participation in learning, taking in the broader context of Indigenous educational perspectives and redefining their relevance in the study of Contemporary Indigenou
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