Bennelong in London is an inquisitive play that will make you rethink the past as you know it

Per The Conversation, a new play at Sydney Theatre Company uses an imaginative theatrical premise to challenge how we understand Australian history. In "Bennelong in London," written by Jane Harrison, a contemporary actor named Sebastian rehearses to portray the historical Aboriginal figure Woollarawarre Bennelong—until Bennelong's spirit unexpectedly appears. Through their dialogue, the play explores who has the authority to tell Aboriginal stories and what we lose when history is documented only by colonial observers like Governor Arthur Phillip and his contemporaries. Rather than claiming to reveal the "true" Bennelong, the production invites audiences to confront an unsettling reality: whose voices are preserved in the historical record, and whose have been erased altogether? The play runs at Sydney Theatre Company through August sixteenth.

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