Australian Human Rights Commission

4. Performing

Each group will present their scenes to the class.

Each performance will be followed by a discussion of the performance and what elements of the issue were brought out. Feedback on further work and development can also be provided.

13. Key questions activity sheet

Stolen

1. Who is 'The Welfare'? Which characters and voices represent 'The Welfare' in the play?

2. Even though 'The Welfare' plays an important role in the play, this is generally one of physical absence from the stage. What other images are used to represent 'The Welfare' in the play?

3. How do you think the representation of 'The Welfare' matches up with the stories from the Inquiry?

4. In the 'Unspoken Abuses' scenes, the children ask questions through a chant or song. Who do you think they are addressing? What are the effects of 'revealing' the information in this way?

5. What do you think 'home' means for the characters? What different ideas of home does the play present?

6. What comments could you make about how time passes in the play? Does it seem to follow a straight line?

7. Reread the set description before the opening. Given what you know now, why do you think they went with this set?

8. What point is Sandy making about the can of peas on pages 19 and 20?

1 Margaret van Keppel and Robin Winkler speaking at the Third Australian Conference on Adoption in 1982.

2 Ubris Keys and Young, Evaluation of the Bringing Them Home and Indigenous Mental Health Programs, prepared for the Office for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health, Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing, Commonwealth of Australia, May 2007.

3 Surveys conducted by the National Sorry Day Committee in 2002 found that several thousand people, particularly in country and rural areas, would make use of the Link-Up services if they could access them. Similarly the evaluation of the WA Link-Up service in 2005 concluded that there is considerable ‘latent demand’ for services from secondary and subsequent generations of the Stolen Generations. See Ubris Keys and Young, Evaluation of the Bringing Them Home and Indigenous Mental Health Programs, prepared for the Office for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health, Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing, Commonwealth of Australia, May 2007.

4 Available online at http://www.mcatsia.gov.au/cproot/593/4318/Bringing%20Them%20Home%20Baseline%20Report.pdf