Comedy depicts indigenous massacre

12 Jun 2012, 8:03 pm   -   Source: Gareth Boreham, SBS
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The mass killing of up to 150 Nyoongar people is the unlikely inspiration for a comedy by the touring Ilbijerri Theatre Company.

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In 1834,  WA's first governor James Stirling  led a party of settlers for what was described as a "surveying" expedition into the state's south-west.

The resulting mass killing of up to 150 Nyoongar people is the unlikely inspiration for a comedy by the touring Ilbijerri Theatre Company.

"They just couldn't see the themselves doing a three or four week season if it was going to be so heavy on their hearts and spirits so to protect themselves emotionally from the content in this show they decided to do it in a comedy," says Associate Director Isaac Drandic.

"Bindjareb Pinjarra" is a largely unscipted collaboration involving indigenous and non-indigenous artists.

Actors Geoff Kelso, Kelton Pell and Phil Thomson were behind the original concept for the production eighteen years ago.

But behind the humour, there's a serious message about just how such events sit in the nation's psyche.

It sparks a recognition that this mass killing was by no means a one-off in the early years of white settlement.

The show plays in Melbourne this week before a Northern Territory tour in August.

Indigenous Australians

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