(Ms Lawford-Wolf speaking in language)
I was sick and tired of white portrayal of Aboriginal people. And I wanted to write a theatre that was different, had all different forms of acting in it whether it be music, dance, singing, a monologue. And I wanted to stay in the traditional way of storytelling but make it real, make it different. And the only way, and the only way I can do stories like that was to fall back on myself and my plays, like ‘You know, you’ve got a story yourself, you’ve been to Alaska when you were 16, you know, you lived here, you lived there, you’ve come from Christmas Creek station, you’ve come up from nowhere and make a name for yourself in the acting world and that is an achievement for someone my age. And I never really thought about it because I don’t think I’m anything special. I don’t know, I’m still quite naive in that aspect.
I wanted to make it honest too, ‘cos you look at a lot of Aboriginal people that are working out there, there’s a lot of Aboriginal women that are working but not really strong Aboriginal women’s stories. And I wanted to make my point of view as a woman and as a proud Aboriginal woman, proud of where I come from, whether than be the backblocks of Woop Woop but yet that place still has a very big significance for me. I wanted to make Australia realise that they do have an Indigenous culture in Australia. They have it here. No, no, and Australia doesn’t need to go anywhere else and adopt someone else’s Indigenous culture which a lot of people tend to do. But, you know, they have it here. And nobody hasn’t discovered it, it’s so funny going to Europe, for me, and more European people know more about Aboriginal Australia than Australians do so which is quite sad, which is really really quite sad. It goes to show how ignorant white Australia is.
