Black Diggers

I went along to this with false expectations. I loved Joan Littlewood’s satirical Oh What a Lovely War! Later,I directed a production of it. I guess I expected a black Ozzie version.

Both had similar geneses: wide research, returned diggers’ stories,  family memories, and in our case, a need to reveal how our indigenous soldiers contributed to that Great War. Researchs unearthed over 60 stories for Tom Wright to weave into a stage presentation. 

The eight indigenous actors of the ensemble: (Uncle) George Bostock, Luke Carroll; David Page; Hunter Page-Lochard; Guy Simon; Colin Smith; Eliah Watego; and Tibian Wyles threw themselves enthusiastically into portraying the characters of the 60+ war vignettes. That meant switching  roles, playing ‘whities’ (including Europeans from either side of the war), and women back home. 

My concern is with the book and the presentation. Designer Stephen Curtis took his over-arching image from a burnt-out First World War bomb shelter in Sydney. It captured especially the depressing grey-black images from the mud of Flanders fields and allowed the actors to graffiti the walls with names of the battles in which their characters served. Even the few songs fail to lift us out of that grey environment.

The real value is our enlightenment that these keen young men who went off on an adventure or to protect their ‘land’ under challenge a second time, earned equality in the army. But when they returned, nothing changed significantly and many found their army service left them and their families disadvantaged.

Jay McKee