01 July 2018
Howard Lawrence Sumner
Bachelor of Education (Junior Primary and Primary)
Hitting the fabled Sydney Opera House at the end of July is The Long Forgotten Dream, the first major play from Ngarrindjeri playwright and University of South Australia graduate, H Lawrence Sumner, with the Sydney Theatre Company.
In his own words, The Long Forgotten Dream – directed by Neil Armfield and starring Jada Alberts and Wayne Blair – tells the story of a PhD student returning home to her ancestral land having found the remains of her great, great grandfather in a museum in England.
She wants her father to conduct a ceremony welcoming the bones back to country, but he is reluctant, having spent years ignoring his community and building a wall between himself and everyone outside his home. An emotional and unique story inspired by real life then ensues.
Speaking about his play making it to the Sydney Opera House, Sumner is remarkably measured, acknowledging the work that has gone into creating the play and is still being done in the current workshopping stage, but does recognise what the achievement symbolises for his writing.
“The Opera House stage has a well-earned reputation for excellence. It’s our Carnegie Hall, I suppose. So, making it there is great. It says something about the quality of work, but that was the Sydney Theatre Company’s call, not mine,” he says.
After completing his Bachelor of Education (Junior Primary and Primary) in 2001, Sumner taught for quite a few years and then came back as a lecturer to UniSA in the Unaipon School as Course Coordinator and lecturer for the Aborigines, History and Colonialism course.
However, having semi-retired from education and turned full-time writer, he has certainly “upped the ante” in the last few years presenting his first major play with the Sydney Theatre Company.
Despite having written and directed a number of theatre works since the early nineties, Sumner believes his time at UniSA hugely informed his career as a successful playwright, which has resulted in his work now being showcased on the most famous stage in Australia.
“UniSA helped me strengthen my argument muscle. Writing essay after essay on Piaget, Bourdieu, and every other innovation in education helped me find my particular voice and a way to frame an argument,” he says.
“That’s all playwriting is – framing an argument in another format. There is no secret to it.”
While at university, Sumner also received a scholarship and says he was grateful for the support and encouragement during his time at UniSA.
“The Irene and David Davy scholarship helped tremendously with the purchase of text books and course necessities such as a decent pack to carry my teaching gear in.”
It feels fitting in a month that honours NAIDOC Week and celebrates the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal people that The Long Forgotten Dream is premiering at the Sydney Opera House.
Speaking to the Sydney Theatre Company Magazine, Sumner discusses the importance of making sure diverse stories come from diverse voices and how the Sydney Theatre Company has championed The Long Forgotten Dream.
“It’s one thing to write about Aboriginal people, but it’s a totally different thing to include pieces by Aboriginal writers. With Kip Williams (Artistic Director) and the rest of Sydney Theatre Company there is a clear distinction between ‘speaking of’ and ‘speaking as’,” he says.
Now at 53, H Lawrence Sumner is showing no signs of slowing down. He has big plans for the next few years including a number of new plays and even plans for a National Aboriginal Theatre.
“I have six more plays I’m working on. Another play was a finalist in the Griffin Theatre Lysicrates Prize this year and the other four are being written, tightened, honed and shaped under lock and key in my writing room at Goolwa. So I’ll have seven plays by the time I’m 58.
“Within the next two years, myself and a few industry colleagues will begin the structural framework for a National Aboriginal Theatre, and I’m visiting Scotland in September to investigate the organisational framework of their own National Theatre.”
When asked why it is important as an Ngarrindjeri writer to tell stories of his history and family, he explains that to him it’s not about an innate need to tell stories, but more a sense of defiance.
“I could fall back on the age-old trope that we are a storytelling people. But I don’t think we are. I think Aboriginal people are a people group who live a very tough and very complicated narrative that is often mistaken as story,” he says.
“Our historic narrative is one of a peaceful and orderly existence that was thrown into chaos by the introduction of people who had no concern for that narrative. The ensuing violence, decimation and struggle only served to confirm that we needed to fight to maintain our own narrative in the face of destruction.
“That’s a writerly way of saying ‘we’re still here, you can’t kill our stories’.”
Previews for The Long Forgotten Dream at The Sydney Opera House start 23 July 2018, with the official season showing 28 July 2018 to 25 August 2018. For more information and tickets please visit the Sydney Theatre Company website here.
