Stolen is a play that has followed director Ian Michael around most of his life.
The Wilman Noongar man used the show’s monologue, “Can of Peas”, as his audition for acting school, and 10 years later directed scenes from the show with the Aboriginal Performance students at Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA).
Michael also names Stolen as one of the influences for HART, a one-man show he co-wrote in 2015, which won him three awards at Melbourne Fringe: Best Emerging Indigenous Artist and two Tour Ready Awards, to take the show to New Zealand and South Australia.
While touring HART, Michael saw autographs from the original cast of Stolen – Tammy Anderson, Kylie Belling, Tony Briggs, Pauline Whyman and Stan Yarramunua – scrawled on the walls of theatre dressing rooms.
“And so that really felt like we were doing the right thing, and that we were literally walking in the footsteps of giants and legends of theatre and Black art,” Michael says.
Now Michael is Resident Director at Sydney Theatre Company (STC), and at the helm of the latest production of Stolen.
The play tells the stories of five members of the Stolen Generations, who were forcibly removed from their families in early childhood: Jimmy, Ruby, Shirley, Sandy and Anne.
Directing a new production of Stolen is an opportunity and responsibility that Michael doesn’t take lightly.
“Stolen is a beacon of what Aboriginal storytelling has been and can be, and the impact this play has had on the Australian cultural landscape cannot be overestimated,” he says.
“This play is part of us all. And not just our history and our past, but also our present.”
As the child of a man who was taken in the early 70s, Michael wants to ensure his production showcases “the humour and the love” in the script, as much as it acknowledges “the truth and the pain” experienced by the Stolen Generations.
“I think that really encapsulates everything that we’re hoping to tell with this production,” he says.
“That we really are acknowledging and honouring those children that were taken away, the ones that never came home, the kids that are in out-of-home care now; and acknowledge and never deny their truth and everything that they experienced and went through.”
A seminal work of Black theatre
Muruwari woman Jane Harrison (The Visitors) was commissioned to write Stolen in 1992 by ILBIJERRI Theatre Company. The aim was to highlight the myriad stories of Aboriginal children who were forcibly removed from their families over generations.
Harrison is now an acclaimed playwright, but Stolen (originally titled The Lost Children) was her first foray into writing for theatre, after years working as a copywriter.
Over a span of six years she worked with researcher Antoinette Braybrook to turn the testimonials of Stolen Generations members into a show.
The community, the cast and the various directors who’ve worked on Stolen have also influenced the show.
Harrison says this is because Stolen is “a very simple play in many respects”.
“It relies so much on the actors and the director, to go into those spaces between the lines and bring their own cultural experiences to the fore,” she explains.
And Michael – who has a growing reputation as an artist with a distinct vision – has gone deep into those spaces in the production design.
The setting notes from the original text state that five old iron institutional beds alternate across the stage, representing the homes of the five characters at various stages of their lives.
“At times they become a children’s home; a prison cell, a mental institution, and a girl’s bedroom … The only other props are a drab green metal filing cabinet, on the far of the stage right,” the notes say.
But for Michael’s production, there is just one very large bed that the cast scrambles over, under and around. Likewise, the sole filing cabinet has been enlarged and doubles as another piece of the set for characters to climb.
The monstrous size of the bed and filing cabinet create an almost nightmarish playground, while underscoring the sheer number of children and families affected by forced removals.
“The idea [behind Stolen] was not just telling the idea of one story, but telling the stories of so many children who were removed from their families over generations,” Michael says.
“We tell the story of five children, but really, they’re telling the story of an infinite number of children.”
A living, cultural document
Actress Kartanya Maynard is a trawlwoolway and Nunga woman, and best known for her roles in shows including Heartbreak High, Deadloch and ABC TV’s Gold Diggers.
One of Maynard’s family matriarchs was a stolen child and Maynard is keenly aware of the intergenerational impact of forced removals.
“I have seen how that trauma has morphed and shifted throughout generations since her … not only was she robbed of so much, but also my grandmother was and my mother and me,” Maynard says.
In this latest production of Stolen she plays Ruby – a child forced to work as a domestic, and abused by her white “carers”.
“[Ruby] just doesn’t get a break. She goes through quite horrible things throughout the play,” Maynard explains.
During rehearsals Maynard channelled her sadness and anger about what happened to her family into her work.
“My life has been changed by people I will never know, [who] I’ll never be able to face,” she says.
“So I’ve got a deep well of anger within me that I’m able to bring to my role and I think it’s been quite healing doing this.”
Part of that healing also comes from being able to amplify the voices of Stolen Generations members who may not be able to speak about what happened to them.
“That’s why it’s really important to me. I think that’s why art is so important,” she explains.
It has always been important for Stolen to amplify the voices of the Stolen Generations. When Stolen premiered at the Playbox Theatre in 1998, it was only one year after the Bringing Them Home Report was tabled in federal parliament.
Many of the early productions of Stolen were actively educating their audience on the impacts of the forced separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families.
“In the original production, we had a book that accompanied the production as it went around, and people could write their responses to it. And there was a lot of people saying: ‘We didn’t know about this story, and why didn’t we know about this story?'” Harrison says.
While contemporary audiences very likely do know about the Stolen Generations, the show continues to hold relevance in 2024.
Despite an apology to the Stolen Generations from then-prime minister Kevin Rudd in 2008, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are still being forcibly removed from their families at an alarming rate.
The 2023 Family Matters report from the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care (SNAICC) states more than 22,000 First Nations children are currently in out-of-home care across the country, and are 10.5 times more likely to be removed from home than non-Indigenous children.
The report also shows First Nations children represent 42 per cent of the total number of children in out-of-home care despite making up only 6 per cent of the population of Australian children.
For Harrison, the fact that her play continues to resonate 26 years later is a source of frustration.
“But it’s better, of course, to share that story and have people more aware of the fact that Indigenous children are still being removed from their families in 2024,” she explains.
“I think that’s tragic and we need to be cognisant of that.”
Stolen runs until July 6 at Sydney Theatre Company.