A little-known true story about a short-lived, revolutionary experiment in Aboriginal self-determination formed the basis for the play Coranderrk, which is on at the Playhouse for two nights only on June 14 and 15 as part of its national tour.

In 1881, the men and women of Coranderrk Aboriginal Reserve, 60 kilometres from Melbourne, took on the Aboriginal Protection Board at a Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry. The reserve had been established in 1867 with the help of sympathetic missionary John Green. The 100 or so Indigenous people living there had made it a thriving community with a successful business growing hops that was doing better than those of nearby white farmers.

Perhaps they were too successful for their own good, as the Aboriginal Protection Board decided to break up the settlement. But they wouldn't go down without a fight, walking all the way to Melbourne and petitioning Parliament for the right to be heard. There were 69 witnesses at the inquiry, both white and Indigenous. Coranderrk dramatises what happened.

The artistic director of Ilbijerri Theatre Company, Rachel Maza, says Giordano Nanni came across the story several years ago while researching his doctorate on another subject at the University of Melbourne.

"It planted an idea in the back of his mind," she says.

Nanni and the more experienced writer Andrea James turned it into a dramatic work that has been through more than one incarnation, moving from verbatim theatre to a more dramatic work though still one based on historical records.

The four actors in the cast play many roles. Among them is Trevor Jamieson, whose previous credits include The Secret River and Namatjira. His principal functions include narrating the story and playing William Barak, one of the establishing leaders of Coranderrk, just one of many historical figures heard from in the course of the play.

Jamieson says he didn't know the real-life story of Coranderrk before starting work on the play.

"It was the first time I'd ever heard of it. It was very interesting," he says – and it led him to ask questions afterwards, about why such self-determination isn't being practised today, a timely subject given the recent Uluru discussions regarding Indigenous sovereignty, constitutional recognition and a treaty.

One of the things he particularly likes about Coranderrk is that the voices of real 19th-century Aboriginal people are heard through the historical transcripts being used as the source of the text.

And while on tour he's been heartened by the response the play has received – especially from descendants of some of the people depicted in it.

"I feel humbled ... the actors have a big responsibility. We want to give the picture," he says.

Maza says that whether it's the Coranderrk community in 1881 or the Indigenous population of Australia in 2017, "at its heart the fight is the same: the right of the Aboriginal people to be self-determining" – through, for example, education, culture, and access to land.

It's an ongoing fight, she says, and a play like Coranderrk has a very contemporary resonance, with Indigenous activists and liberal whites like Green and another Coranderrk supporter, Anne Bon, trying to work for a common good.

"It's inspiring – it's about how blackfellas and whitefellas decided how we can do this together."