Alana Valentine's "Shafana and Aunt Sarrinah" teachers' review for NSW HSC 2027-2028

Brief description and distinctive features

This play is currently set in English Standard: Module A: Language, identity and culture and in EAL/D Module B: Language, Identity and Culture.

When the new HSC list begins in Term 4 2026 Shafana and Aunt Sarinnah is also placed in English Standard: Language, identity and culture and in EAL/D: Language, identity and culture. 

Based thoroughly on personal interviews and produced with the sustained support of many Muslim women, from a diversity of Muslim cultures, the play addresses theatrical and social questions about representation, religious freedom and inter-generational conflict.

This play enables students to be exposed to ‘new knowledge and ideas’ which may shape attitudes and beliefs and certainly expand our students understanding. The play enables authentic connections to the key verbs of the Focus Area: in what ways does the language of the play affirm, challenge, disrupt and ignore our understanding of identity and culture? 

When selecting this play, please consider where your own students are in terms of their knowledge and understanding of Muslim culture, religion and identity. Depending on the demographics of your own students, this background knowledge will vary greatly and you may need to provide opportunities for increased understanding.

Shafana and Aunt Sarrinah was originally commissioned and presented by the Alex Buzo Theatre Company, as a contemporary companion for Buzo’s 1968 play Norm and Ahmed. Norm and Ahmed was more recently performed at Parramatta’s Riverside theatre in 2024 and this review would be a valuable discussion starter for your class:

‘Fifty-three years since its premiere in Melbourne, Alex Buzo’s tense two hander remains alarmingly relevant, confronting issues of racism, xenophobia, female politics, cultural difference and assimilation.’ 

You can see the trailer for this production at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItPsZc01he8

Brief description of Shafana and Aunt Sarrinah

The central impetus for Shafana and Aunt Sarrinah is the clash between two generations' experiences with Islam and religious identity, particularly in the wake of 9/11 and its aftermath. There are only two characters: Shafana, a young Australian-born woman, is drawn closer to her Muslim identity and considers wearing a hijab, while her aunt, Sarrinah, who experienced Islamophobia after 9/11, is wary of such a commitment and the potential for misunderstanding. 

The play opens in a science laboratory, where Shafana, a university student, is practicing a tutorial presentation about deep sea organisms. As Shafana rehearses, her Aunt Sarrinah enters and interrupts to gently critique her niece’s wording. Aunt Sarrinah has recently completed a PhD in engineering at the same university. She had been a respected engineer in Afghanistan, but after fleeing to Australia, it was difficult for her to find work without documentation proving her credentials. So, she studied for another PhD. Now, both Aunt Sarrinah and Shafana need to renew their university IDs, and Aunt Sarrinah wants them to go together because she’s proud of her accomplishment. Shafana has a flashback to her early years in Australia. She and her immediate family left Afghanistan at the same time as Aunt Sarrinah’s family, but they first went to India to wait for the Australian government to let them enter. 

In the present, Shafana comes for dinner at Aunt Sarrinah’s house. She reveals that she didn’t accompany her aunt to get new ID cards because she’s thinking about starting to wear a hijab and is still deciding whether she wants to wear one in her ID picture. Aunt Sarrinah is shocked. She briefly narrates her departure from Afghanistan. She was forced to leave her prestigious engineering job when a bomb dropped on her daughter’s school. She then has a flashback to 2002, in which Shafana shows her a school essay she’s written about a “contemporary crisis in religion.” Shafana wrote about Islam and, as a result, has been revisiting her own faith by reading the Qur’an. The tension grows between the previously-devoted aunt and niece and the discussion about identity, culture and perception asserts a powerful and authentic link to the Focus Area: Language, identity and culture. 

About the playwright: Alana Valentine

Alana Valentine is an incredibly prolific creator who has written close to 20 plays and worked in creating films, television, dance and opera. Alana has won many awards nationally and in the international world of theatre and writing.  It is worth students accessing her website to see the versatility and breadth of Alana’s work:

Distinctive features of Shafanah and Aunt Sarrinah

• It is a play where performance showcases a challenging confrontation about identity
• It is short: at just 44 pages students will be able to explore the play in detail
• There are only two characters and the contemporary setting will add resonance
• References to world events like the war in Afghanistan and 9/11 Twin Towers attack add poignancy to the narrative 
• There are moments of delightful humour and endearing wisdom
• Powerful portrayal of educated, articulate Muslim women 
• This is more than a play about the wearing of the hijab but about how we see ourselves and what contributes to our identity
• The characters experience challenging and confronting transitions which have the potential to be a transformative experience for the audience
• Successfully challenges negative attitudes towards Islam that are presented in the media and reinforced in the public imagination, particularly the stereotyped characterisation of Muslim women as voiceless, repressed and submissive
• It is partly a plea for understanding, partly a bellow of rage from Muslim Australian women about the ignorance and misunderstanding that surrounds the wearing of the traditional Muslim headscarf
• The subtitle, ‘Soft Revolution’, draws the  audience‘s attention to a different kind of revolution. 

Ways into teaching Shafana and Aunt Sarrinah in the HSC classroom

Getting started with an identity task 

It would be engaging and interesting to hold a class competition where the class is divided into groups whose task is to make a list of all the items we wear which symbolise a specific identity. For example, football code allegiance, Christian cross, hijab, work uniform, yarmulke. The group with the longest list wins (perhaps they could be given a prize of some Middle Eastern sweets!)

This task is aimed at developing an awareness as to how many examples of clothing or adornment are culturally-linked or represent an allegiance, faith, occupation. 

Then move the class to a discussion of what do we know about the hijab. You could use some of the information below: 

• Wearing a hijab is a touchstone of religious identity, but it is also represents a transition in a woman’s life 
• The cultural meaning of the hijab has become a wedge between generations and Shafana’s decision to wear the hijab exposes the hopes, doubts and fears of both herself and her aunt Sarrinah 

Plays as performance 

Create a classroom culture to explore drama texts where plays are seen as a unique form and intended for performance. Scripts are prompts for performance and students move and are active with scripts. It is not about creating actors but vocalizing. Use the metalanguage of script: stage directions, set design, scenes, acts.

Explore the language of this play 

The language of theatre and drama scripts is very important in driving the ideas and exploration of identity and culture. The key feature of Shafana and Aunt Sarinnah are the words of the two characters. Occasionally this is in the form of a monologue to the audience but it is mainly through dialogue between the two women. 

It would be a valuable experience for the class to take turns in being Shafana and Aunt Sarrinah and read the dialogue. Consider those reading Shafana could wear a scarf to differentiate the two characters. 

The setting of the story (its time and place) is revealed through the dramatist’s stage directions: SHAFANA is in a laboratory, surrounded by jars of creatures in preserving solution. She is rehearsing a speech, half to her aunt, half to the audience.

The structure of the narrative and how language shapes and reflects the ideas and building tension:

• The play opens in the present
• Shafana digresses to speak directly to the audience and in simple and direct language she reveals some of her backstory page 7

• The stage directions then transition to Flashback 1994. The aunt’s home. The re-creation of their experiences reflect the challenges to belonging in a new culture. This includes language barriers, the lack of acknowledgement of educational background and qualifications and trying to fit in at the packing factory. This exchange reflects a difference in opinion between the aunt and her niece:

    Shafana: You don’t want to be friends with such women.

    Sarrinah: I am such women.

• The chronology changes (page 10) and Sarrinah is in her kitchen mimicking Nigella Lawsons’s use of language and this exchange with her niece is more light-hearted but still reflects their challenges

• Shafana takes us back to the present and the conversation about Shafana’s consideration to start wearing the hijab. Sarrinah’s comments reflect her concern and objection

    Sarrinah: Hijab is an Arabic word. Meaning partition. We are not Arabs. We are Persian.

• Through a series of short sentences, the tension grows between the two women; this is the beginning of the play’s main conflict: the two women have opposite views as to Shafana wearing the hijab. Even Shafana acknowledges there is social tension in wearing it:

    Shafana: People think that you did it because you have been inculcated, you are weak and you have no choice, but for me it is quite the opposite.

  And a few moments later:

    Shafana: I think that some people will stare at me more because of it. I think that in some ways it can be seen as a symbol of something…

• Shafana digresses and provides some important background on her life in Kabul (page 16) and her impressive role as chief engineer on all government projects… the top of my profession.
• The page 17 stage directions tells us: Flashback: 2002. University library and although there is some tension in the discussion the two women have about Shafana’s university topic at this stage it is less divisive.

• Shafana is starting to reveal her passion and search for identity:

    Shafana: The scope and the breadth and the depth of Islam is overwhelming, so much connecting to me, and it’s like answering one of the most profound questions that I have been asking all this time. Aunt, all at one go it just made me literally ecstatic.

These pages are valuable in the contrast between the restrained word choices of Aunt Sarrinah and the passion and exuberance of Shafana as she connects her emerging identity to her culture. 

References to the conflict caused by the September 11 attacks is powerful and may need further explanation for your students. The 9/11 Museum and Memorial in New York has an informative and powerful website which contains some excellent visuals and information.

Shafana’s language choices become more passionate and emotive as she tries to convince her aunt of the personal connection that Islamic scarf has for her. Note the rhetorical questions and repetition:

Shafana: No. Do you want to hear? Do you want to hear me when I say that I want to put on the scarf because this is who I am and feel this is what I want to do? It is for me, not for anyone else. One night I was reading the Qur’an and it just occurred to me. I don’t even recall what passage of where, and it just occurred to me, “Why am I not wearing the scarf, what is stopping me”?

The tension increases:

Sarrinah: I don’t know you. I don’t know this Shafana.

Shafana: I am the same. I am still the same Shafana.

And later:

Sarrinah: It is a fundamental part of who I am. 

The play continues towards its final moments and the two points of view are not reconcilable and this creates a chasm between the two women which is unlikely to be restored. 

Shafana’s final speech creates a dramatic and eloquent symmetry with the opening and now the symbolism of the shrimp and their survival is more poignant. 

Task: In small groups make a graph of the rise and fall in the play’s tension as shaped by specific comments made by Shafana or Sarrinah. 

Groups use the graph to choose the section of the play which most impacts on them as a reflection of identity and culture. They should then prepare a rehearsed reading for the class and follow it with a two-minute explanation as to why the group chose this section. 

Following their reading students write a short reflection about the impact of being active with the script e.g.  it gave them deeper understanding to the play’s key ideas.

Two valuable essays: ‘Creating Identity in a Hostile World’ by Dr Christina Ho and ‘Shafana and Aunt Sarrinah: A Reflection’ by Makiz Ansari.

The two essays can be found at the beginning of the Currency edition. After exploring the play divide the class into small groups and each group is to explore one of the essays.

Ask the groups to highlight about five points which could be used in student responses.

Pool their work for everyone to have a single document. 

Writing tasks and HSC style questions for Shafana and Aunt Sarrinah

The Craft of Writing  

In the new Stage 6 Syllabus The Craft of Writing does not have prescribed texts so it will be valuable to explore all texts as models and impetus for student writing. 

Imaginative

Use of these lines from the play as an opening to an imaginative piece which explores Identity and culture:

How else can I know who I am?

I am glad we have had a chance to talk

Things are changing. Really changing. Diversity is …

Persuasive

Compose a 3-4 minute speech (about 520 words) suitable for a Year 11/12 audience on one of the following topics:

The importance of theatre is to provoke us to challenge our own assumptions 

              OR

I care that in Australia we …

Include:

• An interesting and engaging opening
• A variety of sentence lengths
• Clever and engaging word choice
• Consider the appeal of ethos, logos and pathos (your credibility, use of reason and appeal to emotion)
• High modality in word choice
• Passion and conviction
• Convincing evidence including facts
• Use of the tricolon for rhetorical effect

HSC style questions to consider and workshop

1. Explain how a text’s form contributes to the way that it captures unique cultural perspectives. In your response, make close reference to your prescribed text.
   
   
2. By telling each other stories, we recreate ourselves over and over again. Where do we come from? Where are we going? . . . These stories pass [on] our values as a society . . . It’s how we understand each other.
   Explain how ideas in this statement highlight the way cultural values and identity are represented in Shafana and Aunt Sarrinah. In your response, make close reference to the play.
   
   
3. Explain how the language used in your prescribed text changed your perceptions about identity. In your response, make detailed reference to your prescribed text.
   
   
4. To what extent does your prescribed text disrupt assumptions about culture?In your response, make close reference to your prescribed text.

Relevant details in relation to the new NSW English Stage 6 HSC syllabus

There are requirements for particular types of texts to be selected from the prescribed texts list for different courses. Great care must be taken in selecting a pathway of texts that meets all the requirements.

In the Standard English course students are required to closely study 3 prescribed texts, with ONE drawn from each of the following categories:

• prose fiction
• poetry
• drama OR film OR media OR nonfiction.

Shafana and Aunt Sarrinah includes a range of cultural, social and gender perspectives.

Possible pathways for HSC Standard English course