Whitefella Yella Tree

“And I think about you all the time – like, all the time.”

First love: joyous, sweet and youthful. Two boys from neighbouring mobs, puffed up with teenage giddiness, poised on the edge of a world about to change. Their budding love taking root in Country that is about to be declared ‘Australia’.  

Following a celebrated premiere season at Griffin Theatre Company, this production of Whitefella Yella Tree is the Sydney Theatre Company debut of Palawa playwright, Dylan Van Den Berg. The former STC Emerging Writer’s Group member is fast forging a career as one of this country’s most significant young playwrights, already having won the Griffin Award, the Rodney Seaborn Playwrights Award, the David Williamson Prize, and two NSW Premier’s Literary Awards.  

In the early years of colonisation, a young Aboriginal man, Ty, sits under the knotted branches of a lemon tree. He is learning to be his mob’s storyteller, but for now he is a messenger sent to exchange information with a neighbouring clan group. It’s Neddy who shows up to share the news. When they look at each other, it’s tense, exciting, and strange – “as they fall in love with each other, we fall in love with them” (The Sydney Morning Herald).  

Directed with subtlety and sophistication by Declan Greene and Wiradjuri and Worimi theatremaker Amy Sole, and featuring Pertame and Tiwi actor Joseph Althouse (The Visitors), Whitefella Yella Tree is “subtle, clever and straight to the heart” (ArtsHub). 

Approx. duration: 90 mins (no interval). Subject to change.

Content: Mature themes including colonial violence, theatrical haze, blinding lights, loud noises and prop weapons. Subject to change.