Indigenous storytelling takes centre stage

Vibrant storytelling powers the surge of indigenous playmakers.

Actor and playwright Leah Purcell. Picture: John Feder.

From any perspective, 2017 was a big year for Leah Purcell. If the standing ovations and high critical praise weren’t enough, these are some of the awards she won for The Drover’s Wife, her stunning indigenous retelling of Henry Lawson’s story that opened in 2016 at Belvoir in Sydney: the $100,000 top prize and $25,000 drama prize at the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards; the $30,000 Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting and the $10,000 book of the year at the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards; and the main award plus the David Williamson Prize for excellence in writing at the AWGIE awards.

Purcell also received the $10,000 Sydney-UNESCO City of Film Award for a popular body of work that stretched from Last Cab to Darwin and Lantana to Cleverman and Redfern Now. Oh, and Screen Australia is backing a film adaptation of The Drover’s Wife too. As well as writing the script, Purcell will act in and direct the film, before turning her attention to a book version as well.

“Mate,” she told The Australian during the frenzy of all these awards, “karma comes around to those who do good things.”

Purcell’s run of success is also a reminder, if any were needed, of the vibrancy of indigenous storytelling on the Australian stage. In recent months we’ve seen no shortage of remarkable productions, from Nathan Maynard’s The Season to Ursula Yovich’s Barbara and the Camp Dogs, Yirra Yarkin’s Sista Girl, Katie Beckett’s Which Way Home and Jimi Bani’s My Name is Jimi. And as the year continues, more examples emerge.

Playwright Jada Alberts.

Jada Alberts was widely applauded for Brothers Wreck, her breakout play about an indigenous family in Darwin, when it opened at Belvoir in 2014 under the directorship of Purcell. Four years on, Alberts is directing a return season of Brothers Wreck in June at the Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne, and then at the State Theatre Company of South Australia.

Last month, another in-demand and versatile indigenous talent, Nakkiah Lui, took out the Nick Enright Prize at the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. The award was for her play, Black is the New White, which opened at the Sydney Theatre Company last May before a return season in February and a tour of Brisbane, Wollongong, Parramatta and Canberra. Lui described the story as “the world’s first middle-class Aboriginal Christmas rom-com”, and this is what the NSW Premier’s judges had to say in their citation: “It is buoyant, intelligent and very satisfying as it delivers a solid dose of uncomfortable truth right alongside thigh-slapping good humour.”

Actor and writer Nakkiah Lui. Picture: Jonathan Ng.

Lui has developed quite the following in recent times, courtesy of productions such as Blaque Showgirls at the Malthouse and Black Comedy for the ABC, as well as the podcast Pretty for an Aboriginal with her friend Miranda Tapsell. Her latest play, Blackie Blackie Brown: The Traditional Owner of Death, opens this month at the STC in a co-production with the Malthouse.

Meanwhile, on the big screen, two indigenous stories already stand out as among of the best films of 2018. Sweet Country, released in January, was the second feature by Warwick Thornton, one of the nation’s most dynamic filmmakers. David Stratton gave it 4.5 stars, calling it an “exceptionally fine” film. The other acclaimed film is Gurrumul, the powerful new documentary about the late singer from Arnhem Land, released last month.