Multiculturalism in Contemporary Australian Drama

This thesis investigates the representation of Australia’s cultural diversity in contemporary Australian drama from 1990 to 2014. It traces Australian governments’ reports and statements of the policy of multiculturalism from 1977 to 2017 and critiques their promulgation of Australian multiculturalism as mainly aligning with the dominant culture. Through its analysis of nine plays by eleven playwrights from diverse cultural backgrounds, plays which reflect Australia’s linguistic and cultural diversity, this thesis contends that literary writing – and drama in particular – opens a space for alternative models of multiculturalism. Through its exploration of the journey motif in most of those plays, the thesis challenges the assumption that themes of displacement, alienation and belonging are restricted to works by playwrights from migrant backgrounds. In this sense, it argues that multicultural writing is not restricted to works by writers from migrant backgrounds or dealing with the issues of migration. Through its engagement with the relationship between form and content in these plays, and the role of form in conveying the fluidity of Australian identity, the thesis contributes to scholarship on postcolonial drama. It also argues that resistant postcolonial writing is not restricted to Aboriginal writing but can incorporate works by white and migrant Australians as well.