Truganinni

Bill Reed

May 2015 · Reed Independent

About this ebook

Fear, violence and race prejudice are themes with which we are all sadly familiar. Bill Reed's three plays-on-a-theme, based on the life and times of Truganinni, the supposed last Tasmanian Aborigines so socially visible, develop these themes based on the historical dissemination, dispossession and final degradation of the Tasmanian original people.Bill Reed combines his talent for dramatisation with a professional's creative approach to modern theatre. The three plays offer very different acting and directing possibilities:; the first is a mime against a background of rhythmic verse; the second is a farce-melodrama; and the third is a high tragedy. The plays can be presented (as they were in their premier production at the Union Theatre of the University of Melbourne) as a consecutive trilogy or each can be produced as an independent one-act play.In the years following 'Truganinni's premiere, the play has grown in stature and has been produced, mainly as a whole, around many professional and amateur stage companies.

About the author

 Bill Reed is a novelist, playwright and short-story writer.  He was born in Perth, Australia. His nine professionally-produced plays include Burke’s Company, Mr Siggie Morrison with his Comb and Paper, Truganinni, Cass Butcher Bunting.  His twelve novels have included Dogod, The 1001 Lankan Nights books 1 and 2, Me the Old Man, and the novel tetralogy Throw Her Back, Are Your Human?, Awash and Tasker Tusker Tasker.  He has worked as editor and journalist both in Australia and overseas. In 1980 his novel Stigmata won the Fellowship of Australian Writers’ANA award. Since then he has won national competitions in all three categories of drama, novels and short stories.

But then, in those days, he lived within the Australian publishing and literary worlds. 

Now he dwells outside the gates – in Sri Lanka.