Performing Australia's black and white history: acts of danger in four Australian plays of the early 21 century

In an Australia shaped by neo-conservative government and by searing contention, national and global, over what the past is, how it should be allowed to affect the present and who are authentic bearers of witness, this thesis compares testimony to Australia's black/white relations in two plays by white writers, Andrew Bovell's 'Holy day' (2001) and Katherne Thomson's 'Wonderlands' (2003), and two black writers, Tammy Anderson's 'I don't wanna play house' (2001) and Richard J. Frankland's 'Conversations witht the dead' (2002).