The Black Woman of Gippsland flips the script on a Victorian mystery

The Stage Show

Playwright Andrea James has researched a story from the 1840s, in which colonial newspapers suggested that a 'white woman' – maybe the survivor of a shipwreck – had been taken captive by Gunaikurnai people in what is now eastern Victoria. Andrea interrogates the legend in a riveting new play called The Black Woman of Gippsland.

In 1895 Oscar Wilde was sentenced to two gruelling years in Reading Gaol, for being homosexual. The experience broke his health and spirit, and towards the end of his ordeal he wrote an impassioned 80-page letter called De Profundis ('from the depths'). Acclaimed actor and singer Paul Capsis is performing the letter on stage.

Athol Fugard wrote influential plays about the injustices of South Africa’s racist Apartheid system on everyday people, for decades. Fugard died last month and fellow playwright and scholar Anthony Akerman tells Michael about his work and impact.