Tuesday was a rare day for the theatre world: a new Australian play made the front page of a paper. But it was far from a cause for celebration.

Speaking to the Sydney Morning Herald after his play opened at Sydney Theatre Company, first-time playwright H Lawrence Sumner accused the industry broadly – and director Neil Armfield specifically – of “whitesplaining” and “hijacking” Indigenous stories like his, and called for the establishment of a national Indigenous theatre company.

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Speaking to Guardian Australia, Sumner expanded on his claims: Armfield had cut and changed key parts of The Long Forgotten Dream without consultation, he said; and the changes, along with Armfield’s copy in the program, imbued the work with an “ultra-left political agenda” that he hadn’t intended, shoehorning it into “a certain type of Indigenous image that [STC] want”.

“I’ve always been against an Indigenous theatre company because I thought it was a separatist notion, but maybe we do need it as a safe space,” he said.

Armfield has emphatically denied these claims, saying that “no changes were made without [Sumner’s] agreement” and that the idea the work was imbued with a political agenda was “nonsense”.

In the Herald interview, Sumner also claimed that young, Indigenous female playwrights with “ultra left” views were getting more opportunities than Indigenous men, and implied men were less able to “fight back” against their work being appropriated.

He was referring in part to theatremaker Nakkiah Lui, whose latest two Sydney Theatre Company productions, Black is the New White and Blackie Blackie Brown, he admitted he hadn’t seen. “I’m not critical of the women; I’m critical of the way [the industry] uses people like them to get their own agenda across,” he told Guardian Australia. He called Lui’s voice “distinct, unique and brave” but cited the tagline for Blackie Blackie Brown – “reconciliation, or revenge?” – as one that could “do a lot of harm in this day and age”.



Nakkiah Lui (@nakkiahlui) Ive had 2 full length, 1 short and will have my 4th play with @SydneyTheatreCo As a playwright, a young Aboriginal woman, and an active member of my community, I can say they’ve been supportive and empowering to work with. They’ve shown me trust & have always let me lead the way.

Nayuka (@NayukaGorrie) I’m also sick to death of people implying that black women are so dumb they are being/must be misled by white directors, like little sheep being led to the fucking slaughterhouse? We are shrewd, strategic and fucking agentic.

As a public spat, it covered pretty much all the bases – race, gender, freedom of speech and the political divide – offering a good opportunity to take stock of the Indigenous theatre landscape as a whole.

Guardian Australia asked six practitioners what they think are the biggest issues in Indigenous theatre today – and what the solutions could look like.

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Wayne Blair: male and female Indigenous voices aren’t in competition

Wayne Blair is a writer, actor and director.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘I yearn to hear my Indigenous sister,’ says Wayne Blair, pictured here in Long Forgotten Dream. Photograph: Heidrun Lohr

Neil Armfield has been an advocate for Indigenous playwrights and practitioners, and he was absolutely fantastic in the rehearsal room of The Long Forgotten Dream: an outstanding collaborator, always listening, always adjusting and massaging the shape of the show while being connected to the team as a whole. We had five blackfulla cast members and another three blackfulla crew members in that room, and we all worked as a team.

Yes, there should be an Indigenous theatre company. Yes, there should be more Indigenous male writers. But in this performing arts world, I still yearn for the female Indigenous voice. Aboriginal women have been up against it since day one in this country; I want their voices to be heard. This is paramount to change, and to our collective self-worth.

Throughout the history of colonisation, the Indigenous female voice has been consistently persecuted. Yes, the male voice as well – but we go and fight at the coalface together. I yearn to hear my Indigenous sisters speaking of what comes from their heart and minds. This should not be a competition.

Wesley Enoch: we need a national Indigenous theatre company

Wesley Enoch is a playwright. He is currently artistic director of Sydney festival.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sydney festival director Wesley Enoch believes it’s time for a national Indigenous theatre company. Photograph: Prudence Upton

Right now, the only way most of our large-scale, culturally ambitious Indigenous theatre projects are created is in the environment of non-Indigenous theatre companies – and I used to run one, I know how tricky that can be.

It can take a different skillset to get your vision across when you’re working outside your cultural milieu. You have to articulate a whole cultural viewpoint, and a history, and a way of talking. It’s the kind of energy you wouldn’t spend at an Indigenous-run theatre company.

These companies also have assumptions built into the core of their businesses that sometimes can’t accommodate other cultural perspectives – such as working in known theatres, with box office and pricing expectations. What if we want to do it on a Bunggul ground instead? What if we want to dance the story, or tell it in a different way? It is not impossible, but it takes a lot of negotiation.

The idea of a national Indigenous theatre company has been around for decades. When we had this conversation 10 years ago we asked, what would that company look like? Many have a western view of how a company structures itself, but instead it could be this incredibly responsive body that isn’t about bricks and mortar, and goes to where the stories are and where the artists are making work: in Yirrkala, Coober Pedy, Brisbane or Broome. A centralised body could resource them and tour the works, but the work itself could be developed locally.

Of course major companies would still need to employ and do work by Indigenous artists. But where is the space to create Indigenous stories, that starts from an Indigenous cultural storytelling point and is part of our multimillenias’ worth of practice?

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Andrew Bovell’s The Secret River was an amazing show: it’s basically a whitefella’s dreaming about how white people tried to place themselves in this landscape, and what they were trying to escape. The Indigenous people on stage were speaking Dharug, which meant the white people in the audience got that same experience of being on the outside.

But where’s the flip side of that, which tells our side of the story, and where non-Indigenous people have to come on our journey? As a country we might be feeling that the Indigenous stories are coming out, but there is much more Indigenous artists can say when they’re able to self-determine.

Rachael Maza: first nations people need full creative control over their stories

Rachael Maza is an actor and director.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Rachael Maza says ‘nothing will change’ until we can distinguish between real and fake first nations theatre. Photograph: Steven Rhall/IndigenousX

The industry is still not able to make the distinction between first nations theatre that’s made by first nations people, and theatre about first nations people that is not made by them. This is the difference between real and fake first nations theatre.

History is written by the victor and Australian history books are full of stories about the victors, stories of discovery and adventure; of his courage, his ingenuity, his strength. This history continues to be retold by his descendants. But history is not what happened in the past; it’s the stories we tell about the past.

At any given moment we as theatremakers and storytellers have the ability to retell this history. But while we live in a country that cannot distinguish between real first nations theatre and fake first nations theatre, nothing will change.

The solution is simple: the principle of self-determination – the term which came into popular political discourse in the same era modern black theatre was born in this country – must be applied when it comes to making first nations theatre. I look forward to the day when we look back and laugh at the thought that white people once thought it was OK to tell black stories.

I’m not saying we can’t and won’t collaborate – but it has to be a true collaboration, where everyone’s voice is important, and respected.

Shari Sebbens: theatre companies need to hire more Indigenous staff

Shari Sebbens is a stage and screen actor.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Theatres need to be safe spaces,’ says Sapphires star Shari Sebbens. Photograph: Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images for DIFF

Indigenous playwrights often don’t get the chance to build up bodies of work; they tend to be first-time playwrights who remain one-time playwrights, and you have to wonder why that is. Why didn’t that playwright come back and write another?

Maybe it’s because so often you feel like the other in those buildings. Indigenous actors get to go into Indigenous plays knowing they’ve got a whole cast of mob to play with, but the writers have been walking down those corridors for many months beforehand, alone. There’s a lot of time to think about how you’re representing your community in that revered space, often as the only Aboriginal person in the building.

That’s why I believe if your company wants a reputation for being advocates of Indigenous work – or gets funding or revenue from Indigenous plays – you have a duty of care to have at least one Aboriginal member on your staff, who is also well-supported.

There’s a feeling you get when you see someone that’s also Indigenous. You’re bound by the shared experience of oppression and transgenerational trauma in a way. Colonisation can be a great ice breaker.

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Theatres need to be safe spaces. If you don’t feel like your experience in that room is valid or implicitly understood, there’s no way you feel brave enough to reach your creative potential. This becomes even more important for first-time playwrights, because often times the place they’re writing from is deeply personal.

Also, a lot of the time we’re doing black plays to white faces. Companies that hire more diversely are opening their audiences up to other communities – not just for the four-week run of an Indigenous show, but year-round.

Tony Briggs: this time, let’s really talk

Tony Briggs created the stage play The Sapphires and starred in Cleverman and Black is the New White.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tony Briggs: ‘Don’t just give us lip service’

The conversations around Indigenous theatre today are all important, but so many of them have been happening now for a long, long time. When we get caught up in these cyclical conversations, it’s hard to keep focused on what needs to actually change. A flare-up like this is a prime opportunity for the leaders in the community to really come together – the dance world, the theatre world, the film world – to bunker down and go, “Let’s really talk. What’s a good way, a workable way, to actually move forward?”

People outside of our culture are making decisions about what our culture is all about; they’re talking about our emotions, and our dreams, and our aspirations. We’ll get control over our stories – but however it happens, it’s going to involve remembering history, remembering the trailblazers.

I’ve always been one for supporting the young Aboriginal practitioners coming through. Some leading theatre companies are doing that, and others have missed great opportunities. It can’t be just standing up on stage and “we acknowledge the traditional owners, blah blah blah”. Give them jobs! Put them inside your organisations! Don’t just give us lip service.

Nakkiah Lui: we need to critique the white lens – and the critics

Nakkiah Lui is a writer, director and performer of stage and screen.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Playwright, actor and Gamillaroi/Torres Strait Islander woman Nakkiah Lui

There can be a real weight on your shoulders as an Indigenous artist, because you’re always having to think about the impact of your work. We need to keep asking questions: Why am I telling this story? What do we define as an Aboriginal play? And how is that definition changing?

Someone once asked me: “When are you going to write a non-Aboriginal play?”, as if that was my next step in my career. It came from a very ingrained place of racism that I hear a lot from very well-intentioned people: this idea that on the one hand there is an “Aboriginal story” and on the other there is a universal one; that the most pure form of a great play, or a great story, sits outside of race.

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But it never sits outside of race. Those plays we consider the “great” plays are always white stories. Shakespeare leaned into his whiteness – that’s why all his plays are about tyranny. Simon Stone’s Thyestes was a great play about white men, but it’s never described that way. All my plays are always going to be somehow Aboriginal, because I’m Aboriginal – but white playwrights aren’t described as “white playwrights”.

I would love there to be a national Indigenous theatre company – but what if we also took the white-run companies which produce predominantly white work and called them, say, White Man Theatre company? I want to see white guys fuck shit up and be tyrants, too – I’m not saying there’s no room for that. But we need to illuminate the white lens, and question it, if we want to democratise theatre and make room for other people.

We have some great critics in Australia. They’re just as important as the storytellers, and often their response to a work the only record we have of what happens in our theatres. But most of our critics are white, and when they’re critiquing a non-white play, there’s a power relationship that often goes unacknowledged. I want to know about the critic’s identity and their privilege in relationship to the work; I want them to really engage with that.