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English Preliminary prep

How is the dramatic form of monologue used to explore Aboriginal perspectives and experiences in '7 Stages of Grieving?

Grief and trauma are interdependently connected in both the play and Aboriginal experiences, all stemming from the impact of colonisation. This is exemplified in ‘Scene 10: Invasion Poem’, as the Woman delivers a monologue in which she recounts a story of receiving a visit from strangers, which is an allegory for the arrival of colonists. In the opening lines describing their arrival, the Woman states “I invited them in, they demanded respect”, which contradicts the common colonists’ historical perspective. The use of the verbs “invited” and “demanded” juxtapose the Woman’s warm approach with the colonist’s cold, aggressive manner from the outset, which foreshadows the events that are about to unfold for her. Additionally, the Woman blurs the line between personal experience, as she speaks in first person using the pronoun “I”, and broader, inherited intergenerational trauma. This is because the language she uses to describe other people throughout the scene is vague: “they...them...my father”, allowing the audience to be able to envision any number of Aboriginal women in the same story. In performing this scene as a monologue then, the Woman is able to simultaneously construct an Aborigina l perspective and truth about the trauma and grief she has personally experienced, as well as construct a voice for the broader voices of her community, as the story she relays is a shared experience in itself. Furthermore, the form of a dramatic monologue here connects to Aboriginal methods of traditional storytelling, in which elders or respected knowledge holders pass down heritage and history through oral storytelling. In this, the use of a monologue is used to connect to that tradition, and, in itself, explore Aboriginal perspectives and experiences of trauma and grief as a by product of colonisation in a culturally significant manner. Ultimately, this invites the audience to empathise with the Woman and consider a different, more confronting perspective on colonisation than the one they may have been fed in their history books.

Topic sentence Textual evidence: quotes, techniques Metalanguage Explanation and analysis Link

Responder’s reason for their answer to the question: Basically I’m saying that the monologue allows the single actor to represent

multiple different ‘characters’ as the ‘everywoman’, therefore exploring a variety of Aboriginal perspectives + experiences. Introduce the Text: Don’t forget to introduce the text (7 Stages of Grieving) the text type (play) and the author (Wesley Enoch and Deborah Mailman) in your introduction! Connection to the question: Make sure your thesis (argument) balances your answer to the question and the language of the connection yourself. Don’t hesitate to use the words in the question. BUT The worst theses just repeat the question “Monologues are used in the play to explore Aboriginal perspectives and experiences”... TELL ME WHY?! Outline of Key points: Next, I am explaining my THREE points for their body paragraphs. This tells the marker that I will discuss the use of monologue and Aboriginal perspectives across three key scenes. It will also help me as I continue to write to structure my paragraphs and ideas, as idea 1 = paragraph 1, and so on. Link: Finally, this sentence expresses why these scenes support my thesis and link my ideas back to the question.

Memory Memories belong to the individuals portrayed within The 7 Stages of Grieving and also to the collective. Some memories like the stories go with Nana, some are passed from generation to generation; a timeline of pain and grief from 1788 until the present. Collected like photographs in the suitcase, stories of family, tradition and culture are held in the memory with the pain of the past. Even when characters escape the situation, the link to the past is still present. Aunty Grace returns from England and although she holds out for some time eventually succumbs to the shared memory of the family and land, emptying her own belongings from the case and filling it with red soil. The only reflections that bring relief are fond memories that involve family: trophies and pendants from sporting achievements that array the room, photographs of birthdays, weddings and fun occasions that adorn the walls. Memories serve as a constant reminder, a testimony to good times, that it is not all bad, there is always family. Memory impacts the present and torments the protagonists. Each have their own painful memories: death of immediate loved ones, injustices to themselves and those around them. The play depicts the idea of a collective memory passing from generation to generation like stories with individual memories, value-laden and having an impact on the next generation.

Memory Quotes ‘I miss my grandmother. She took so many stories with her to the grave.’ Scene 4 A collection of images appear, depicting the phases of aboriginal history.. Dreaming, Invasion, Genocide, Protection, Assimilation … Scene 18

Grief Individual and collective grief shapes the narrative of The 7 Stages of Grieving. Emblematised through the woman who lays sleepless among the sacred things after her children have been

stolen, the play shows that grief is as much about loss of culture and tradition as it is about loss of life. When a person passes there is obvious and understandable grief shown by the family. They gather and grieve but the dead person is free to go on, not to be recalled through photographs or mentioning of their name, able to pass, respected, to the next life. However culture is lost forever, like the arm destroying the sand piles representing the irreversible damage of colonialism on Indigenous culture. The grief about loss of culture follows generations. In a similar way, one small event is shown to trigger grief across many. The protest marchers are silent, grieving, after another death in custody. A collective grief is driving them from events that have been imposed upon their culture and life since 1788. Eventually the woman ends the play with the effect of grief overcoming her. ‘Nothing, nothing, I feel nothing.’ The ultimate message conveyed from the exploration of individual and collective grief in the play is the cumulative impact of grief. Years of individual grief and generations of collective grief have all taken their toll: physically, emotionally and culturally. The play concedes that grief is a shared human experience and emphasises the compounding impact of power imbalances, racism and cruelty on grief.

Grief Quotes ‘I lie painfully sleepless. In a landscape of things I know are sacred. Watching unsympathetic wanderings.’ Scene 9 ‘Our cultures that have been denied us. But we have been taught to cry silently.’ Scene 22 ‘Grief, grieving, sorrow loss death pain.’ Scene 2

Character A single actor presents this piece that lasts for about one hour. The play consists of a number of short scenes performed by a single actor who portrays an individual’s perspective on historical events. The character who shares her experiences is both an individual in her own right and someone who also represents others, voicing their experience. The actor employs different forms and styles to change perspectives. These include monologues where a single actor addresses the audience, often retelling stories from her life, some traditional songs in language, and mime. The use of different technologies such as words projected on a surface add depth to the piece. The tone varies, driven by both the content and the style. Styles drift from colloquial soliloquy to stand-up comedy to court reports. The actor tells the story of a collective people but the audience can specifically hear the events surrounding select people. These include the nana, a grandmother who has passed and who triggers the reflection, and other members of the actor’s family including her father, brother and Aunty Grace. Significant historical events are referenced through a women from the stolen

generation era, a young man called Daniel Yocke and protest marchers. Above all, the woman’s own experience is palpable throughout the play.

Many stories are told through one single character. The play is divided into 23 scenes. Each scene can be seen to relate to either the seven phases of Aboriginal history or the five stages of dying. The seven phases of Aboriginal history are: Dreaming, Invasion, Genocide, Protection, Assimilation, Self-determination, and Reconciliation. The five stages of dying are: Denial and Isolation, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. Some scenes are silent and dependent on visual effects, some scenes are in an Aboriginal language to show connection to the past, other scenes have very modern dramatic forms such as stand-up comedy. There is a sense of a chronological development through the scenes. By the end of the short scenes the audience has touched on a comprehensive account of individual and community grief.

Within the live-action play and book the 7 stages of grieving by Weasly Enoch and Debroach Mailman. Theme thrives with it being the backbone for this outright different play. By using multiple types of storytelling and perspectives the play is able to keep audiences intrigued and educated on the trauma, grief, and history of the ingenious aboriginal community. This is expressed by…. Things to talk about *The suitcase and the further meanings behind it. Eg symbolism storytelling etc

The central symbol in The 7 Stages of Grieving is a suitcase, which symbolizes the weight of grief. As the play’s central character, the Woman, shares stories about personal, political, and communal grief, she moves back and forth between states of intense pain and eerie numbness. Her suitcase is the object most associated with this difficulty in processing her grief. The suitcase—which belongs to the Woman’s whole family—is filled with photographs of family members who have either died or become estranged; each time the family loses someone, they immediately place all their photographs of that person inside the suitcase, which marks the beginning of their grieving process. On the one hand, putting the photographs into the suitcase makes grieving more manageable. It’s a concrete step in the grieving process that acknowledges loss and safeguards cherished memories. In fact, the symbolism is somewhat literal here: by putting the pictures into a suitcase—the very function of which is to make carrying its contents easier—the family is making it easier to carry their grief. Nonetheless, that grief is still heavy—and sometimes it’s too heavy to bear. Midway through the play, for instance, the Woman recalls when her Aunty Grace, upon visiting her recently deceased mother’s grave, dragged her suitcase out of the car and scattered its contents across the cemetery, symbolizing that her grief had become too much

to carry. Likewise, as the Woman interacts with her family’s suitcase, she sometimes carries it easily and other times finds it too much to bear. At various points in the play, she buries the suitcase in the red earth, moves it from place to place across the stage, unpacks it, repacks it, and, at last, lays it at the feet of the audience before stepping away from it and declaring that she feels “nothing.” The suitcase, then, is the battleground for the Woman’s struggle between facing her pain and surrendering to numbness—carrying the suitcase indicates living with pain, and emptying or burying the suitcase symbolizes the state of numbness that the Woman experiences when she can no longer face her suffering. At the end of the action, the Woman is still messily moving through the many stages of grieving, attempting to wrangle the many layers of her sorrow, her family’s struggles, and her people’s pain. Scene 1: Prologue The prologue follows the appropriate Aboriginal protocols of respect for the dead indicating to the audience that the play will respect and uphold cultural traditions. It warns of the possibility of hearing about or seeing dead people. The reason that many Indigenous groups are sensitive to naming or showing pictures of the dead is that traditional law across Australia suggests that a dead person’s name could not be said because it would recall and disturb their spirit. After colonialism, this law was adapted to images as well. In some areas, families may determine that a substitute name such as ‘Kwementyaye’, ‘Kunmanara’ or ‘Barlang’ may be used instead of a deceased person’s first name for a period. This is also known as a ‘bereavement term’. Perhaps unintentionally, a very sombre tone is set by the prologue.

Scene 2: Sobbing The first scene relies heavily on emotion to convey meaning; a sensory appeal to the auditory, familiar in that it will connect with audiences through sobbing. It introduces the idea of grief as the sounds of sobbing becoming a wailing noise and eventually subside with lights revealing a woman on stage. The metaphor of light and dark suggests revelation as the plight of an Indigenous woman is recognised. The projection of words synonymous with grief and loss, including ‘sorrow’, ‘pain’, ‘mourn’ and ‘lonely’, are shown to indicate the state of this Indigenous woman who is not so much a single character but an ‘everywoman’, and symbolic of Indigenous people.

Scene 2 Quote ‘Absence, nothing, nothing – highlight despair and deep grief. Grief … grieving … nothing, nothing, I feel nothing.’ Scene 2

Scene 3: Purification

The character displays the respectful act of ritual purification. The woman lights eucalyptus leaves and then after the flame subsides to smoke, she waves the smoking leaves and asks for permission to tell her story. Storytelling is a long tradition of many Indigenous communities but stories are regulated and some are restricted to ‘men’s business’ or ‘women’s business’ and some need permission to be told to other groups or communities. The language is traditional and ensures a sense of the character’s culture and perhaps defiance of white culture.

Scene 4: Nana’s Story This scene is delivered in the style of storytelling, the oral tradition, and is also about the transmission of memories. The performance area is flooded with colour. ‘The only thing black at a funeral should be the colour of your skin’, is uttered. A gathering has occurred that represents generations: Nana, the older ones, the character herself, younger cousins in floral dresses and kids grabbing videos. A story of the older generation is lost as Nana held so many memories and stories. The funeral and the way the community responds in times of death helps the audience to understand and recognise the commonalities between two cultures. The god-fearing, church going description of Nana helps narrow the cultural divide. The fact that there are so many people, 400, at the service reveals the impact of one older person on many. White neighbours watch the activities of the five houses filled with relatives, ‘gamin’ (faking, joking) that they are watering a garden. They do not interfere but do not fully understand either. The description of Nana’s death includes eight euphemisms for death, hints at the many ways a person can die: spiritually, culturally, physically.

Scene 4 Quotes ‘My grandmother was a strong God-fearing woman who, at the age of sixty-two, was taken from us, passed away, moved on, gone to meet her maker, departed this world, slipped in to her eternal sleep, her final resting place, laid to rest.’ Scene 4 ‘The whole family came together for meals.’ Scene 4 ‘… gave her tithe to the church and was visibly nervous at the mention of “gubberment”.’ Scene 4 ‘Sometimes you felt like crying …, and sometimes the joy of being there was enough to forget, even for the briefest moment, the reason.’ Scene 4 ‘The neighbours would watch from the safety of their kitchen window.’ Scene 4 ‘She took so many stories with her to the grave.’ Scene 4

Scene 5: Photograph Story

Another culturally common occurrence around funerals includes photographs. It is a human experience, not a culturally exclusive experience. Memories are maintained through photographs and links the past to the present. In this case, photographs which cannot be seen once the person dies, ‘the nameless ones’, are placed in a suitcase which is pushed under the staircase. Although true to tradition, it does hint at a break with elders and loss.

Scene 5 Quotes ‘The room is full of photographs … A testimony to good times, a constant reminder.’ Scene 5 ‘With an unspoken gesture we remove the picture of my nana from her commanding position … and without a sound push her in to the shadow.’ Scene 5 ‘Everything has its time.’ Scene 5

Scene 6: Story of a Father After touching the ice, the actor steps back and exclaims ‘Oh my sousou! (my chest)’. The pain she is experiencing comes from exploring the importance of family connections in this brief monologue about her father. The fact that her father is only 45, a relatively young age to be perceived to be near death, reminds the audience of the disparity in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. There is some relief that even though death stalks her father, the character knows death will claim everyone and lists some names of prominent people that have discriminated against Indigenous Australians. There is also hope as the actor realises that they will never have to live through what their father has been through.

Scene 6 Quotes ‘I’m trying to deal with Dad’s death. He hasn’t died yet.’ Scene 6 ‘He hasn’t stopped fighting since ’67.’ Scene 6 ‘The pain comes in here, I cry and cry until I can’t feel anymore. Numbed.’ Scene 6 ‘It’s inevitable.’ Scene 6 ‘The one thing that I find comforting about death is that other people die too.’ Scene 6

Scene 7: Family Gallery This is a visual interaction. Family portraits are projected on stage emphasising the importance of family and continuity with the dark past, ancestors having passed through genocide, stolen generations, pain and adversity.

Scene 8: Black Skin Girl A traditional dance that uses the Kamilaroi (Murri) language and includes dance as a means of storytelling. The dance is interrupted by projections of letters on to the actor starting with ‘A’ and proceeding through the alphabet. At first this symbolism of forced education and assimilation is treated as fun. However the character becomes weary and then distressed by the changing letters. Finally the letter ‘Z’, the end of her culture, is projected onto the actor’s bare skin. Assimilation has taken everything.

Scene 9: Invasion Poem Verse is utilised in this scene to demonstrate the impact of colonisation on Indigenous Australians. The poetry displays a woman’s response to having her children forcibly removed as part of the Stolen Generations. Still topless from the previous scene, she is vulnerable. Her innocence is highlighted as she shows respect to those who come to her house. Their despicable act, deceptively framed as a friendly visit through the front door, is full of brutal violence as they remove the children. The children are taken and stripped of their culture, the woman left bereft among the sacred landscape.

Scene 9 Quotes ‘They come in the front door.’ Scene 9 ‘I invited them in, they demanded respect.’ Scene 9 ‘They sat in my father’s seat.’ Scene 9 ‘Without warning.’ Scene 9 ‘One took a handful of my hair and led my head to their knee … washed his face in my blood .. ploughed my feet. My feet.’ Scene 9 ‘My children stolen away to a safe place.’ Scene 9 ‘I lie painfully sleepless. In a landscape of things I know are sacred. Watching unsympathetic wanderings.’ Scene 9

Scene 10: 1788 Cloaked in humour and colloquial language, the woman rebukes the first fleet for parking in the harbour. Her comment that they are ‘taking up the whole harbour’ foreshadows their uninvited settlement that will reach the corners of Australia.

Scene 10 Quo...