Indigenous Australian Theatre from the 1970's to the 1980's

Australian Indigenous Theatre from the 1970’s to the 1980’s

(Warning: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers should be aware that this document/blog may contain images or names of people who have since passed away)

A growth in the 1970's and early 1980's of a literary Indigenous movement was spearheaded by a growth in indigenous playwrights.  Robert J. Merritt (The Cake Man -1975), Gerald Bostock (Here Comes the.Nigger - 1975), Bob Maza ( co-playwright Basically Black - 1974, playwright Mereki - 1979 and The Keepers - 1986), Jack Davis (Kullark - 1972, The Dreamers - 1982, No Sugar – 1985, Honey Spot – 1985, Moorli and the Leprechaun - 1986), Burungin – 1988 and In Our Town - 1990, Kevin Gilbert (The Cherry Pickers – performed in 1971 and published in 1978) and the unpublished and unperformed Ghosts in Cell Ten – performed in part in 1970), and Oodgeroo Noonuccal (previously known as Kath Walker (Burrum - 1978) all wrote magnificent pieces of theatre that varied in subject matter and style. The Indigenous drama of this period is complex, combining realism with symbolism; didactic stereotyping with crude melodrama and complex parody and multi-level storytelling. Indigenous writers of this period were concerned with the representation of Indigenous history, indigenous issues and the creation of  “... an awareness in the Indigenous community of virtues such as pride, respect, self-esteem and motivational (Parson's 1995:14).

The development of much Australian indigenous drama during the 1970’s and 1980’s is due to the prolific output and energy of Western Australian dramatist and poet Jack Davis (1917–2000). He was born in Perth and brought up at Yarloop and the Moore River Native Settlement. It was while at the Brooketon Aboriginal Reserve that Davis began to learn his native language and reconnect with the culture of his people, the Nyoongarah of the south-west of Western Australia. After a number of jobs, he went to work as a stockman in the north-west which brought him into contact with more tribal indigenous communities. Largely self-educated, Davis furthered his education and writing skills by writing “a bit each day” at the end of long hard working days of sometimes 16 hours. This led him to become very articulate and he ended up becoming a spokesperson and activist on behalf of his people. In 1967–71, he was nominated as Director of the Aboriginal Centre, Perth. This led him in 1971 to become the first chairman of the Aboriginal Lands Trust, WA. His interest in indigenous stories and writing grew during his years as a stockman and from 1972 until 1977 and Davis made sure that many indigenous writers had their work published through his position as Managing Editor of the Aboriginal Publications Foundation.

During the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, Davis was also able to devote more time to editing his writing some of which had been done as a stockman and itinerate worker over the span of many years. His first book, an anthology of poetry called The First-Born, was published in 1970. He was approached by the actor Leonard Teale and excerpts were recorded by Teale and released in 1973 – the first Aboriginal poetry on record. Jagardoo: Poems from Aboriginal Australia followed in 1978. From 1972 until 1977, Davis was managing editor of the Perth-based Aboriginal Publications Foundation. Identity, its quarterly journal, became the most important and influential Indigenous ‘voice’ in Australia. As early as 1972, Davis began experimenting with theatre because he saw it as a natural medium for modern indigenous stories to be told publicly.

It is a tribute to Davis as a writer and community leader that he saw publishing as a way for indigenous people to have a voice in a time when some Australian states seemed reticent to embrace the political and social changes which were on the wind in the wider Australian community. His total output of plays is prolific by any standards Kullark,  No Sugar, The Dreamers, Barungin: Smell the Wind, In Our Town and for younger audiences, Honey Spot and Moorli and the Leprechaun.

“I was extremely interested in the prospect the theatre medium presented. Theatre offered an opportunity to use all the talents of speech and body movement present in Aboriginal oral literature and dance since time began. It was an exciting way of reaching a wide audience. I started writing a play called The Steel and the Stone.”

(Cheeson 1988:124)

The Steel and the Stone was a semi-autobiographical piece which explored part of the history of the Moor River aboriginal settlement. This play had a week’s run at the Bunbury Arts Festival in 1972 with Davis’s niece, Lynette Narkle, in the cast.

In 1975, Davis went to Sydney to a workshop organised by Brian Syron at the Sydney Black Theatre Arts and Cultural Centre in Redfern at the Theatre Arts Centre Redfern. He wrote a short play The Biter Bit, about a group of country Aborigines who go to Sydney and are able to con a con man.

Davis then returned to Western Australia and he began what was to become a long time working relationship with Andrew Ross, the newly appointed head of the National Theatre Company in Perth. In 1976, he develop the script for Kullark, an indigenous drama about the first contact between whites and blacks. Andrew Ross thought that Davis’ play and his indigenous actors needed a forum in which to allow the play to grow and the indigenous performers to grow in confidence and performance skills, so he decided to include the play in the National Theatre Company of Western Australia Theatre-in-Education program to coincide with the state’s celebration of 150 years of ‘white’ settlement. Western Australian state government funding was found for the project. Ross also gave young indigenous actor Aboriginal actor Ernie Dingo his first major role in this play. The school’s tour of Kullark was controversial but it was popular enough for Davis to start work on another play and for Andrew Ross to agree to direct this play.

Returning to the ideas and themes he explored in The Steel and the Stone, of the tragic history of the Moore River Settlement, Davis began workshopping with Ross and the Swan River Stage Company. The Dreamers premiered at Perth’s Dolphin Theatre early in 1982 as part of the Festival of Perth. Davis and a number of indigenous performers performed in the play because of Davis’ and many indigenous people’s belief that the owners of the history should be the tellers of the story. “We were all pretty well untrained actors,’ said Davis, ‘but most of the cast had lived the life portrayed in the play; all they had to do was relax and be themselves.”

The season was a success and in 1983, the National Theatre Company of Western Australia and the Australian Elizabethan Trust mounted a four-month tour of the eastern states of The Dreamers, with Ernie Dingo playing Eli. The end to the hugely successful season involved performances at the Sydney Opera House Playhouse making the play and the performers the first indigenous performers to perform on the stage at the Opera House. “Those 30 Opera House performances will always stick in my memory and are a highlight of my career,” said Davis.  The Dreamers was the first Indigenous Australian play seen in the United Kingdom. The play had a four-week season as part of the 1987 Portsmouth Festival – ironically during a re-enactment of the launching of the First Fleet. It has been revived many times.

Many people regard the first full length Indigenous Australian full length play was Robert J. Merritt's The Cake Man which premiered in 1975. The play was written by Merritt when he was an inmate in Bathurst Jail where he was incarcerated. He was allowed granted release for the opening night and was in the audience handcuffed to two guards. When the play ended and the audience started thunderous applause, Merritt came on stage and he almost knocked over his two burly guards as he threw his arms into the air. No-one can underestimate the impact that Robert J. Merritt’s The Cake Man had on indigenous theatre for both Indigenous Australian and mainstream audiences. The play’s plot which is based on Merritt's own life, revolves around missionary life and a Bible-loving mother and an alcoholic father, and how the innocent faith of a small boy transforms a white miserly man.

Photograph from the 1983 season of Robert J. Merritt’s ‘The Cake Man’

The success of the play owes much to Merritt’s beautiful combination of touching everyday dialogue with wonderfully poetic imagery. The play would not have had the impact it had without the inspirational performances in early productions by Brian Syron as the drunken Sweet William and Justine Saunders as the ever suffering Ruby. Syron’s training as an actor and Justine Saunders’ instincts as an actress made the piece have the same emotional impact wherever it toured in Australia. Syron and Saunders toured with the play, on and off, for almost 7 years and it played in small to medium sized venues through out Australia and overseas. Like many Indigenous plays since, The Cake Man uses contemporary dialogue and themes but places them in a recent historical context. 

                            Brian Syron as Sweet William in the first production of 'The Cake Man'

The play mourns the loss of indigenous culture and criticizes missions and forced religious conversions. In Merritt’s view, government and white authorities steps to emasculate and dis-empower indigenous males, often hide behind the Church and its spirituality. As Sweet William states in the play:

  “Sweet William: But, Rube, there ain’t nothin’ now I know to do. Just hopeless, and no price I can pay because there ain’t no price I’ve got to give that anyone wants. I’ve got nothing they want! ” (Merritt 1975: 32)

Merritt draws on many traditions both indigenous and non-indigenous in his play. The opening relies upon caricature like the indigenous political pieces of the early 1970’s or Bill Onus’ indigenous revues of the late 1940’s with stereotyping of the Priest, Soldier, Civilian and the Aboriginal Man, Woman, and Child which acts as a potent satirical comment on the power of ‘God and Gun’. The indigenous characters do not talk in the scene and the white dialogue is undercut by a sung rendition of the Bing Crosby tune ‘There’s A Happy Land Somewhere’. In The Cake Man, Merritt creates a powerful combination of highly theatrical moments, with naturalistic dialogue which dominates much of the play, combined with powerful direct addresses to the audience and allegorical retellings of dreamtime stories such as the that of the ‘Emu and the Curlew’. Robert J. Merritt was in the audience of the opening night of his play 'The Cake Man' under police guard as at the time he was an inmate at Long Bay Jail.

Merritt went onto write a number of other plays exploring the same issues as The Cakeman including his 1983 short play Short Changed which investigated many of issues facing urban indigenous males.

Stylistically, The Cake Man can be contrasted with much Australian drama of the period because of its unique combination of direct audience address and poetic realism when confronting its audience with complex issues of indigenous identity:

Epilogue from The Cake Man:

Sweet William: …Forget all this shit about giving me back me culture … What I want, what I’m here for is… its something else again… You ever heard of the eurie-woman? Well listen then, I’ll tell you what’s an eurie-woman, and what it is I want here. I was working at the Killara Station … (wide-eyed)an’ all of a sudden I heard this emu drummin’ somewhere close. I got up am wen outside and stoked the fire, an’ all the time this emu was still drummin’. Soooo …while I was turnin’ round, I got the biggest fright of me whole life! It weren’t no emu, it was a woman. And she had hair that was sinin’ black an’ it hung right down her backside. She was the prettiest woman I ever saw…yeah…she was an eurie-woman…I fair bolted out of there… But it didn’t matter where I went, she was always in front of me…her hair shinin’ and swirling like it was made out if water, an’ her skin like black lightning. Well…then there is this gubba I was working for, was sayin’ to me…’Come on William, ain’t no eurie-woman…Come back to reality.’ (Pause. Smiling sadly) Exac’ly what the eurie-woman was sayin’ to me…(Pause) Two realities (Pause) A’ I lost one. (Pause) But I want it back…I need it back. (Pause) Not yours…mine.

The work of Merritt and Davis inspired other indigenous writers to see theatre as a strong medium for telling indigenous stories. Oodgeroo Noonuccal wrote the play Burrum in 1978 which was performed at the Warana Festival in Brisbane. The simple set design for the play included a backdrop painted by members of Oodgeroo Noonuccal’s own community from Stradbroke Island. Maza started writing his play Mereki in 1979 and had a moved reading of the play later that year. The play, which explores the tensions surrounding Indigenous land rights did not see its first full production until 1986. His next play The Keepers which was written and performed in 1988, combined naturalistic and non-naturalistic elements to explore the destruction of the Boandik peoples in South Australia.

The late 1970’s also saw a great interest by some mainstream non-indigenous playwrights writing plays addressing indigenous issues with parts written for indigenous actors. Of particular note are Queensland playwright Jill Shearer’s 1978 play The Foreman and the Socialist Sydney-based playwright Dorothy Hewitt’s The Man From Mukinupin which was produced and published in 1979.

1979 also saw a reading of Eva Johnson’s first play When I Die You’ll All Stop Laughing at the Adelaide Fringe Festival at the Adelaide Fringe Festival Centre and later at a writers workshop at LaMama Theatre Melbourne. This satire was ahead of its time on many counts and it was a precursor to the blossoming of indigenous women’s theatre in the mid 1990’s and it was one of the first Australian dramas, indigenous or non-indigenous, to deal openly with issues and perspectives of lesbianism and female homosexuality. It is also one of the first Australian Plays to deal with issue of the Stolen Generation. 

Johnson is a poet, actor, director, playwright, teacher and academic. She is one of the Mulak Mulak people and she was born at Daly River in the Northern Territory. She is one of the Stolen Generation and her plays explore this theme with depth, impact and humour. As a young child she was forcibly removed from her family and relocated to the Croker Island Mission. At the age of 10, she was transferred to an Adelaide orphanage. She initially trained as a drama teacher at a school in Worriapindi. The fact that no-one was prepared to have an open mainstream performance of Eva Johnson’s When I Die You’ll All Stop Laughing is a sad indictment on Australian attitudes to female indigenous issues, the issue of the Stolen Generation and issues surrounding lesbian identity and relationships. What Do They Call Me? as a one woman show, explores three Stolen Generation stories from one family's point of view centering around a mother and her two daughters. As one of the Stolen Generation herself, a recurring theme in Johnson's work is the impact on women and children of government policies directed at Indigenous Australians. Some argue that Johnson was not accredited the accolades she deserved early in her career, because of the politically confronting nature of her work, others claim because she openly declared that she was a lesbian, that acceptance of her work was always going to be difficult in Australia in the 1970’s and 1980’s.

In 1981, Brian Syron and Robert Merritt co-founded the Aboriginal Theatre Company at the Eora Arts Centre in Redfern. They operated under the auspice of the Aboriginal Education Unit of TAFE and received some funding but both Syron and Merritt realised that they needed to create a successful production that could tour locally and internationally if they were to make the endevour worthwhile. In some ways the dual business model of the Aboriginal Theatre Company using an education facility or institution as a basis for a commercial theatre venture, while soliciting theatre companies in other major cities to make their production a co-production or part of a local theatre season, became the major arts business model for Indigenous theatre companies (and major 'state' theatre companies) in the late 1980's and through to the early 21st century. This combined with international performances not only lifted the profile of the company and indigenous theatre but also allowed Indigenous Australian actors to be paid decent union level wages for the entire season of a play. The initial production they chose to mount was a new production of Merritt's The Cake Man which initially toured Australia's Eastern States and later was performed at the 1982 World Theatre Festival in Denver Colorado. The production was subsequently invited to tour a number of North American colleges. A Melbourne production of the play directed by Syron at the Universal Theatre in Fitzroy was also highly successful and led to the production's season being extended and the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs providing a government funding for a season of the play at the 1983 Brisbane Warana Commonwealth Arts Festival (Syron 1991:4).

If audiences in Australia and overseas were not aware of the talent and depth of indigenous performers throughout Australia, a television mini-series was about to change and challenge many popular perceptions of indigenous drama. The 1983 television series Women of the Sun (Borg 1983) was billed a female Australian indigenous version of histrionic American mini-series Roots. Although the series was made by non-indigenous writers, directors and producers, the input into and participation of indigenous artists in the creation of the project was unprecedented for a television venture. 

 

The program follows a number of generations of indigenous women and covers issues of tribal life and traditions, colonialization, attempted genocide and the stolen generation. This series was important not only because it was widely watched and viewed, but it also employed some 100 female indigenous performers over the mini-series, a benchmark which would not be overtaken until Rachel Perkin’s production of Bran Nue Dae some 25 years later.

The early 1980’s saw a gradual growth of indigenous theatre throughout Australia. In Tasmania, Jim Everett, put on an interesting production of the new play Put Your Boots at the Salamanca Theatrein Hobart in 1982 and this theatre company came to support indigenous theatre for many years to come. Meanwhile, in Adelaide, the pioneering work of Eva Johnson continued in 1984 with performances of her plays Tjinarella and Onward to Glory at the First National Aboriginal Women’s Arts Festival in Adelaide. The 1984 success of Tjinarella and Onward to Glory was followed up with her 1988 drama Murras at the Adelaide Fringe Festival Centre at the Adelaide Festival. Murras later did a season at the Black Theatre Season at Belvoir Street Theatre in Sydney. The Magpie Theatre Company in Adelaide did a premiere season of Johnson’s Mimini's Voices in 1989 and this show represented Australia at the Hiroshima Arts Festival in Japan in 1990. In the same year she again performed her monodrama What Do they Call Me? at the National Lesbian Festival in Melbourne. What should be acknowledged is that Johnson was writing challenging indigenous drama that specifically addressed the issues of indigenous women when only Oodgeroo Noonucal and Justine Saunders were attempting to address such issues.

Beyond this, Johnson addressed the issues of the Stolen Generation and homosexuality in an open and highly dramatic way in her performance pieces and written plays. The dramaturgy of her work is demanding in terms of Indigenous dramaturgy, feminist dramaturgy and the continuum of Australian playwrighting. Johnson has received a number of awards for her work albeit late in her career. In 1985, she was rightly awarded the Aboriginal Artist of the Year Award. Late in the 1980’s she performed and toured her play Mimini’s Voices with the Magpie Theatre Company, a theatre company which from the late 1980’s until the late 1990’s supported a number of indigenous playwrights and performers. In 1993, her outstanding achievements as a playwright, poet, director, actor and teacher were recognized when she was presented with the Australia Council's inaugural Red Ochre Award for her achievements to the Arts in Australia.

Late in the 1980’s, there was a proliferation of indigenous drama initiatives. Some of these primarily centered on workshops and sharing of script and ideas for shows, while some like the Sydney Kooris in Theatre actually put on script readings and small scale productions of indigenous dramas. The 1987 First National Black Playwright’s Conference in Canberra heralded the emergence of a new generation of Indigenous playwrights and Indigenous Drama including Eva Johnson, Mudrooroo Nyoongara, Richard Halley, Archie Weller, the late Vivian Walker and of course Wesley Enoch. The conference started and went on to foster and nurture the emergence of indigenous performer/playwrights like Ningali Lawford, Deborah Cheetham, Deborah Mailman and Leah Purcell and the talent of a number of actor/practitioners who were to become pivotal to Australian indigenous drama in the 1990’s and early 21^st century such as Rachael Maza Long, Rhoda Roberts and Lydia Miller. The work of these theatre practitioners combined the realism of the Indigenous drama and the strength of new Dreaming Tracks. 

During the First National Black Playwright’s Conference (NBPC) at the Australian National University in Canberra, the delegates awarded Syron the 1987 Inaugural Harold Blair Award for his Lifetime Achievements in the Performing Arts which brought with it the additional honor of the title ‘Elder’. 

First National Black Playwrights Conference: Monday 4^th January 12^th January to Monday 19th January. Some delegates also stayed from Monday 19^th January to Friday 23^rd January continuing the workshops and discussions at the Australian National University, Canberra, ACT. Mini Heath made the poster for the conference and workshops.

The main day was Wednesday 14 January of the conference which included poetry reading and workshops by Kath Walker (Oodgeroo Noonuccal) and Colin Johnson. Also a rehearsed reading of ‘We are Survivors by James Everett, ‘Murras’ by Eva Johnson, ‘Man Hunt’ by Kath Walker (Oodgeroo Noonuccal) and ‘Coordah’ by Richard Walley. The Friday the 23^rd and the next week had rehearsed readings of plays by Lydia Miller, Joanna Lambert, Rhoda Roberts, Richard Guthrie, Eric Willmott and Vivian Walker. This included ‘The Hijacker’ by Richard Guthrie and Eric Willmott. The following is a documentary film made of the rehearsals and readings from ‘Karbara: The First Born’ which I remember as being first written in draft form by Lydia Miller and Joanna Lambert but it used some of the poetry and ideas from Jack Davis’ ‘First Born’.

(Warning: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander [viewers, listeners, readers] are advised that the following program may contain images and voices of people who have died. This warning should be used when it cannot be clearly established that an Indigenous Australian featured in the content is living.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTqyce7hHmI

 Some of the people I know attended the conference were Carlo Bianchino; Raymond Blanco; Susanne Butt; Jack Charles, Lillian Crombie; Jack Davis; Andy Devine; Ernie Dingo; Chicka Dixon; Steve Dodd; Mark Eckersley;  Jimmy Everett; Leslie Fogarty; Gary Foley; Kevin Gilbert; Rosalie Graham; Richard Guthrie, Annie Hanlon; John Harding; Mini Heath; Colin Johnson, Eva Johnson; Michael Johnson; David Kennedy; Maroochy Kukoyi; Joanna Lambert; Gordon Launders; Jane Leslie; Lydia Miller; Bob Maza; Bob McCleod; Robert Merritt Jnr; Kristina Nehm; Oodgeroo Noonuccal; Dorothea Randall; Rhoda Roberts; Justine Saunders; Guy Shoesmith; Kevin Smith; Brian Syron; Vicki Van Hout; Vivian Walker; Calvin Warcon; Richard Walley; Maureen Watson; Archie Weller; Cristopher Williams; Eric Willmott. 

As a result of the first NBPC Syron proposed and co-founded the Aboriginal National Theatre Trust (ANTT). The ANTT was started with an elected steering committee of indigenous performing artists, playwrights and technicians. Brian Syron and others thought that the organization needed to have expertise from many areas of the performing arts. The original steering committee comprised Brian Syron, Kevin Gilbert, Lydia Miller, Rhoda Roberts, Suzanne Butt, Michael Johnson and Lesley Fogarty, with Justine Saunders as advisor. The ANTT was constituted as a company limited in 1988 and its headquarters in King Street, Newtown under the stewardship of administrator/scriptwriter Vivian Walker (son of poet Oodgeroo Noonucall and brother of actor Dennis Walker), Chairperson actor Lydia Miller and directors Justine Saunders, Rhoda Roberts, Lillian Crombie and Brian Syron. It helped develop an agenda for a National Aboriginal Theatre, and its leaders saw the development of young indigenous performance artists and the cross fertilization of contemporary Australian art and Aboriginal culture through dramatic workshops and performances as crucial to the development of indigenous drama. ANTT also saw its role as that of a consultative body to a range of Aboriginal and non-indigenous production houses, theatre companies and educational institutions, as well as to individuals.

The first major mainstream play produced by ANTT was its 1988 production of Bob Maza’s The Keepers at Sydney's Belvoir Street Theatre. This was a significant event in the history of indigenous theatre in Australia, since it was the first time an all-indigenous production under all-indigenous administration was staged in this country. The success of the Second National Black Playwright’s Conference in 1989 at Macquarie University gave rise to the broader creative forum, the Corroboree of Aboriginal National Storytellers. In March 1990 the ANTT produced a world premiere of Richard Walley’s Munjong at the Victorian Arts Centre. Following the unexpected death of Vivien Walker in 1991, the ANTT was thrown into mourning.  In June 1991, the ANTT, the second attempt at a National Black Theatre folded following the resignation of its Board of Directors in protest against the lack of financial support from state and federal government funding bodies.

Australia Day 1988 was a sad day for indigenous peoples throughout Australia. It marked the bicentennial anniversary of European settlement and marked the beginning of a history of dispossession and tyranny. A documentary titled Australian Daze made by the Australia’s Day Film Project is an observational documentary shot by 29 different camera crews on the bicentennial anniversary of European settlement on the 26^th of January 1988. The filmed section of indigenous demonstrations and protests is essential viewing to get the sense of indigenous responses to a significant event. But even in this dark hour, a brand new day of hope was emerging.

At the 2nd NBPC held in 1988, Syron directed a play reading/video test production of Jimmy Chi's stage musical Bran Nue Dae  under the guidance of Chi who travelled from Broome in Western Australia to Macquarie University to take part in the event. It was heralded as a success and Syron and others promised to help to harness support and money to get this daring project, the first indigenous musical, off the ground and running within the next few years. Ray Kelly’s Get Up and Dance was performed to critical acclaim in 1989 showing that serious indigenous drama could still attract audiences in a competitive theatre marketplace.

No writing on 1980’s indigenous drama could not end with talking more extensively abour Jack Davis and ending with his own dramatic words. 1988 was the bicentennial year of European settlement, so for indigenous peoples it became a crucial year to tell their stories and try to once again start dialogue on true reconciliation, apologies and measures for compensation. Two of Davis’ earlier plays Honeyspot and Barungin were given very successful seasons as part of the official ‘World Expo on Stage’ at the Brisbane Expo in 1988.

In Australian indigenous drama 1988 became a crucial year for indigenous people to have their stories and their ‘voices heard on the wind’. Importantly, this year saw in, Melbourne, the first performance of Jack Davis’ entire First Born Trilogy. This important seminal work encompassed Kullark, The Dreamers and No Sugar. 

The production showed the violence and humorous aspects of Kullark and The Dreamers but the final play in the trilogy No Sugar  (a play that chronologically actually precedes No Sugar) highlights the oppression of institutionalized indigenous peoples as it follows the ancestors of the Wallitch clan introduced to audiences in The Dreamers. The works combine anecdotal and historical details in a dramatic way that has become a hallmark of indigenous drama. The final play in the trilogy No Sugar is dramatically very interesting and moving. Davis alternates between European styles of narration and storytelling and indigenous styles, language and dialogue. Particularly moving is the section of the play when Billy tells us about the Oombulgarri Massacre (Umbali):

BILLY:  Big mob politjmans, and big mob from stations, and shot ‘em
everybody,mens, koories, little yumbah. [He grunts and mimes pulling a trigger.] They chuck ‘em on a big fire, chuck ‘em in river. [They sit in silence, mesmerized and shocked by BILLY’S gruesome story.]


JIMMY: Anybody left, your mob?


BILLY: Not many, gid away, hide. But no one stop that place now, they all
go ‘nother country.


JOE:    Why?


BILLY: You go there, night time you hear ‘em. I bin bring cattle that way for
Wyndham Meat Works. I hear ‘em. Mothers cryin’ and babies cryin’,
screamin’. Waiwai! Wawai! Wawai!

(from No Sugar by Jack Davis)

Just as the winds of 1788 had brought the white sails of the west, 1988 brought the voices of the Dreamtime back to many indigenous people, voices of hope, dignity and stories and a history to be told. In 1988, an amazing journey and set of events took place. Fifty dancers, singers, storytellers and their families from the Lardil people, from Mornington Island in the Gulf of Carpentaria, and the Borroloola community in the Northern Territory, made an epic 8000km journey across some of the roughest country in Australia. They linked up with communities from the Carpentaria gulf country and with people of the remote Kimberley region sharing and reinforcing their Aboriginal cultural identity. This was a true cultural meeting and exchange of ideas. These events are wonderfully depicted in the 1991 documentary Dance Your Land made by the Woomera Aboriginal Corporation. When these Indigenous Australian communities met, they presented their histories, journeys and identity through their dances and songs and the fires of the land burnt brightly joining the past to the present and signaling to the future.

Further Readings and Resources on Australian Indigenous Drama in the 1970’s and 1980’s

Basically Black (Television, video version of play performance).1973. Maza, B. et al. ABC Television. Sydney. Telecast 26/2/73.

Berndt, R.M. & Phillips, E.S. 1973. The Australian Aboriginal Heritage: An Introduction Through the Arts. Ure Smith. Sydney.

Black Voice: A History of Indigenous Theatre (Radio Program). ‘Awaye’. ABC Radio National Australia. October 28^th, 2011.

Bostock, L. 1973.  'Black Theatre in New South Wales' in New Dawn Sept. 1973 (paper from the 1st National Seminar on Indigenous Arts).

Brisbane, K. 1989. Plays From Black Australia. Currency Press. Surrey Hills. Sydney.

Brisbane, K. 2001. The Future in Black and White Indigenousity in Recent Australian Drama. Currency Press. Surrey Hills., Sydney.

Carroll, D. 1995. Australian Contemporary Drama. Surrey Hills, Sydney.

Casey, M. 2004. Creating Frames. Contemporary Indigenous Theatre in Australia 1967-97. University of Queensland Press. Brisbane.

Chesson, K. 1988.  Jack Davis, A Biography. Dent, Melbourne.

Dance Your Land (documentary).Woomera Aboriginal Corporation & Ronin Films. 1991.

Davis, D. 1989. Barungin, Smell the Wind. Currency Press. Sydney.

Davis, D. 1983. The Dreamers and Kullark. Currency Press. Sydney.

Davis, D. Honey Spot, a play for children. Sydney: Currency Press 1987.

Davis, D. No Sugar. Sydney: Currency Press 1986.

Dow, S. 2022. 'It had no filters' The Legacy of Australia's Provocative National Black Theatre. 'The Guardian'. Nov. 10, 2022.

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/nov/09/it-had-no-filters-the-legacy-of-australias-provocative-national-black-theatre

Eckersley, M. 1987. Workshop Record of the Bob Maza Workshops at National Playwright's Conference 1987. Unpublished Manuscript. Canberra.
Eckersley, M. 2013. No Sugar - Insight Text Guide. Insight Publications. Cheltenham, Victoria, Australia.

Gilbert, K. J. 1977. Living Black, Blacks Talk to Kevin Gilbert. Penguin. Ringwood (Victoria)

Johnson, Eva. 'What Do They Call Me?' in Australian Gay and Lesbian Plays ed. Bruce Parr. Sydney: Currency Press.1996.

Kaine-Jones, K. 1988. 'Contemporary Indigenous Drama', in Southerly No.4, 1988, 'Focus on Indigenous Literature'. English Association. Sydney.

         Merritt, R.J. 1983. The Cakeman. Currency Press. Paddington, Sydney.

Shoemaker, A. 1989. Black Words White Page. University of Queensland Press, Brisbane.

Syron, B. 1990. Indigenous Voices - Contemporary Indigenous Artists, Writers and Performers 1990, 138:142, Liz Thompson, Simon & Schuster, Brookvale, Australia.

Watego, C. 1992. 'Indigenous Australian Dramatists' in Community Theatre in Australia, ed. Richard Fotheringham. Currency Press. Sydney.

Indigenous Drama in the 1970’s and 1980’s - Discussion

Discussion

1. How important is politics in the development of indigenous theatre of the 1980’s?
2. Why does ‘realism’ become the dominant style of indigenous theatre of the 1970’s and most of the 1980’s?
3. Why does Eva Johnson’s work during the late 1970’s and early 1980’s not gain wider acceptance and credit?
4. Are the late 1980’s a time of greater openness in Australian audiences where indigenous drama like Davis’ The Dreamers are finally able to find acceptance or is the wider acceptance of indigenous drama like Davis’ The Dreamers indicative of ‘white’ Australian audiences guiltily placating themselves for years of acceptance of prejudice and blindness to the issues brought by ‘white’ society, religious fervor and government policy on indigenous peoples?