WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange’s Life Heads To The Stage

A new play will take the stage based on the infamous hacker Julian Assange. The 53-year-old spent nearly 14 years in prison as well as time under house arrest after he was convicted of espionage charges as well as sexual assault charges.

The play, titled Truth will premiere in February of next year at the Malthouse Theater in Melbourne, Australia. Truth was written by playwright Patricia Cornelius, a decorated playwright with over 20 plays on her resume as well as multiple awards. She was given a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Green Room Awards in 2019.

Assange was not involved in the creation of the play about this life, but he is aware of it. Cornelius talking to the Guardian Australia is happy she’s able to work on her own saying, “He knows it is going to happen. I feel like it is great to be independent of that input.” She says her play is about “those who want to change the world and are punished for it.” US Army Vet Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden will also be portrayed in the play.

Cornelius is pleased for the chance to write about Assange, revealing: “I am so happy at this point in my life that I get to write a play that is overly political. Assange is one of ours, whether you like him or not he’s Australian, and that does connect us to him. It’s worth finding out more about his story. It’s worth our arts going there and having some clout.”

The play follows the life of Assange from his beginnings as a teenage hacker. Authorities raided his home he shared with his mother and confiscated his equipment. They later returned the items after not finding any concrete evidence against him. At 17, Assange hacked the Australian Overseas Telecommunications Commissions, but took pride in not damaging or causing a crash in their systems, but he merely shared information. In the mid-90s, he was arrested by Australian authorities on over 30 charges of hacking crimes against Telecom Australia.

Assange most notably is credited with starting Wikileaks, a website designed to publish classified or restricted information. The info was often confidential and connected to war, spying or corruption. Thousands of confidential US documents were published which put attention on the involvement in the Afghanistan war, citing American soldiers killed their citizens and it went unreported.

The US said Assange’s actions put the safety of American personnel at risk and in turn put a spotlight on the nation’s involvement in global concerns. He was later charged with 18 counts of conspiring to break into military databases. Assange claimed he rightfully exposed the US government and their military indiscretions and the battle against him was always politically motivated.

In 2016, Wikileaks released damning emails from a Hilary Clinton aide as well as from the Democratic National Committee. Both sets of emails set off a media frenzy. In Assange’s personal life, he was accused of sexual assault against two women in Sweden in 2010. Assange sought asylum in London’s Ecuadorian Embassy and the charges were later dropped after the statute of limitations expired. In 2019, Swedish authorities decided to reopen the case against him and Assange maintained his innocence.