No Sugar

Last updated

No Sugar is a postcolonial play written by Indigenous Australian playwright Jack Davis, set during the Great Depression, in Northam, Western Australia, Moore River Native Settlement and Perth. The play focuses on the Millimurras, an Australian Aboriginal family, and their attempts at subsistence.

The play explores the marginalisation of Aboriginal Australians in the 1920s and 1930s in Australia under the jurisdiction of a white government. The pivotal themes in the play include racism, white empowerment and superiority, Aboriginal disempowerment, the materialistic values held by the white Australians, Aboriginal dependency on their colonisers, and the value of family held by Aboriginal people.

The play was first performed by the Playhouse Company in association with the Australian Theatre Trust, for the Festival of Perth on 18 February 1985. It also was chosen as a contribution to Expo 86 in Canada [1] [2] No Sugar forms the first part of a trilogy, the First Born Trilogy, which also includes the titles The Dreamers and Barungin (Smell the Wind). The trilogy was first performed by the Melbourne Theatre Company in May 1988 at the Fitzroy Town Hall. [3] The play won the 1987 Western Australian Premiers Award [4] and in 1992 the Kate Challis RAKA Award for Indigenous Playwrights. [5]

The play utilises the perambulant model, which is a technique used in drama to dislocate the audience involving multiple points of focus. Throughout No Sugar it is employed to convey a sense of displacement to the audience, representative of the isolation felt by the Aboriginal people unable and unwilling to assimilate to white culture.

Characters

Jimmy Munday, the protagonist.

Gran Munday, Jimmy's mother, a traditional Aboriginal woman.

Milly Millimurra, Jimmy's sister, who has three children.

Sam Millimurra, Milly's husband. .

Joe Millimurra, Mary's love interest and Milly's eldest son.

Cissie Millimurra, Milly's daughter.

David Millimurra - Milly's youngest son.

A. O. Neville, Chief Protector of Aborigines.

Miss Dunn, his secretary.

Mr Neal, Superintendent of Moore River Native Settlement. Abuses Indigenous people and is lecherous to Indigenous girls.

Matron Neal, his wife, Matron of the hospital.

Sister Eileen, a Catholic missionary.

Sergeant Carrol, sergeant of the Northam Police.

Constable Kerr, member of the Northam Police.

Frank Brown, an unemployed farmer who befriends Jimmy Munday.

Mary Dargurru, Joe's love interest. An outspoken girl who is mistreated by Neal, works for the Matron at the settlement.

Billy Kimberley, a Black tracker, an Aborigine working for Mr Neal.

Kundavai Pirattiyar, a princess from the Chola Dynasty who hears the story of the injustice given to both Munday and Millimurra‘s family and tries to stop the injustice being served.

Bluey, a Black tracker.

Topsy, Mary's subservient and submissive friend who also works for the Matron.

Justice of the Peace, a farmer who sentences Frank Brown, Jimmy and Sam for alcohol abuse.

Notes

  1. [Jack Davis - No Sugar to be Australia's official contribution at Expo 86] Bulletin (Sydney, N.S.W.:1880) 22 April 1986, p.94
  2. [Jack Davis - play 'No Sugar' to open in Canada, details of play.] The West Australian, 1 May 1986, p.16
  3. "AusStage". www.ausstage.edu.au. Retrieved 17 July 2016.
  4. "Australian Web Archive". webarchive.nla.gov.au. 23 August 2006. Archived from the original on 23 June 2010. Retrieved 18 June 2012.
  5. "Australian Web Archive". webarchive.nla.gov.au. 23 August 2006. Archived from the original on 23 June 2010. Retrieved 18 June 2012.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Noongar</span> Group of Aboriginal peoples on the southwest coast of Australia

The Noongar are Aboriginal Australian peoples who live in the south-west corner of Western Australia, from Geraldton on the west coast to Esperance on the south coast. There are 14 different groups in the Noongar cultural bloc: Amangu, Ballardong, Yued, Kaneang, Koreng, Mineng, Njakinjaki, Njunga, Pibelmen, Pindjarup, Wadandi, Whadjuk, Wiilman and Wudjari. The Noongar people refer to their land as Noongar boodja.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">A. O. Neville</span> Australian public servant

Auber Octavius Neville was a British-Australian public servant, notably Chief Protector of Aborigines, in Western Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jack Davis (playwright)</span> Indigenous Australian playwright (1917–2000)

Jack Leonard Davis was an Australian 20th-century Aboriginal playwright, poet and Aboriginal Australian activist. Academic Adam Shoemaker, who has covered much of Jack Davis‘ work and Aboriginal literature, has claimed he was one of “Australia’s most influential Aboriginal authors”. He was born in Perth, Western Australia, where he spent most of his life and later died. He identified with the Western Australian Noongar people, and he included some of this language into his plays. His work incorporates themes of Aboriginality and identity.

NAIDOC Week is an Australian observance lasting from the first Sunday in July until the following Sunday. The acronym NAIDOC stands for National Aborigines' and Islanders' Day Observance Committee. NAIDOC Week has its roots in the 1938 Day of Mourning, becoming a week-long event in 1975.

Midgegooroo was an Aboriginal Australian elder of the Nyungar nation, who played a key role in Aboriginal resistance to white settlement in the area of Perth, Western Australia. Everything documented about Midgegooroo is mediated through the eyes of the colonisers, some of whom, notably G.F. Moore, Robert Menli Lyon and Francis Armstrong, derived their information from discussions with contemporary Noongar people, in particular the son of Midgegooroo, Yagan. Largely due to his exploits in opposing colonisation and his relationship with Lyon and Moore, Yagan has a much sharper historical profile than his father. Midgegooroo was executed by firing squad and without trial under the authority of Lieutenant Governor Frederick Irwin in 1833.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Whadjuk</span> Noongar people of the Swan Coastal Plain in Western Australia

Whadjuk, alternatively Witjari, are Noongar people of the Western Australian region of the Perth bioregion of the Swan Coastal Plain.

The Australian colonies and in the nineteenth century created offices involved in dealing with indigenous people in the jurisdictions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coranderrk</span> Former Aboriginal reserve, now heritage site, in Victoria, Australia

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Moore River Native Settlement</span> Disbanded Aboriginal settlement 10 km west of Mogumber

The Moore River Native Settlement was the name of the now defunct Aboriginal settlement and internment camp located 135 kilometres (84 mi) north of Perth and 11 kilometres (6.8 mi) west of Mogumber in Western Australia, near the headwaters of the Moore River.

Wangkatha, otherwise written Wongatha, Wongutha, Wankatja, Wongi or Wangai, is a language and the identity of eight Aboriginal Australian peoples of the Eastern Goldfields region. The Wangkatja language groups cover the following towns: Coolgardie, Kalgoorlie, Menzies, Leonora and Laverton; these towns encompass the North-eastern Goldfields region of Western Australia.

This is a timeline of Aboriginal history of Western Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aboriginal tracker</span>

Aboriginal trackers were enlisted by Europeans in the years following British colonisation of Australia, to assist them in exploring the Australian landscape. The excellent tracking skills of these Aboriginal Australians were advantageous to settlers in finding food and water and locating missing persons, capturing bushrangers and dispersing other groups of Indigenous peoples.

Stephen "Baamba" Albert was an Indigenous Australian actor and singer. He starred in the musicals Bran Nue Dae and Corrugation Road.

William Harris (1867–1931) was an early Western Australian activist for Aboriginal civil rights. He has been called "the most significant voice of a generation with the education and social standing to assert their rights as British subjects".

Stephen Muecke BA, Mes.L (Paris), PhD (UWA) FAHA is Emeritus Professor of Ethnography at the University of New South Wales, Australia and Adjunct Professor at the Nulungu Institute, University of Notre Dame, Broome. He studied linguistics and semiotics, completing his PhD on storytelling techniques among Aboriginal people in Broome, Western Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mineng</span> Indigenous people of Western Australia

Mineng, also spelled Minang or Menang or Mirnong, are an indigenous Noongar people of southern Western Australia.

<i>Under the Influence</i> (Diesel album) 2011 studio album by Diesel

"Under the Influence" is the eleventh studio album by Australian musician, Diesel. The release came about following a string of live dates, in which Diesel performed tracks that had influenced his own material. The album follows the extended play.7 Axes which was released in February 2011 and peaked at number 71. Both EP and album were recorded in ten days in June 2010.

Daisy Bindi (1904—1962), also known as Mumaring, was an Aboriginal Australian Indigenous rights activist and a leader in the landmark 1946 Pilbara strike in Western Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yued</span> Region of indigenous people of Western Australia

Yued is a region inhabited by the Yued people, one of the fourteen groups of Noongar Aboriginal Australians who have lived in the South West corner of Western Australia for approximately 40,000 years.

Muriel Conomie Stanley, also known as Sister Stanley, was an Indigenous Australian Anglican home missionary, obstetric nurse and social worker. Before earning her nursing degree, she served as the matron of a Church Army children's home in Tasmania. She became an obstetric nurse in 1945, making her one of the first Aboriginal Australians to become a registered midwife. She then served as matron of the Yarrabah mission hospital. She held this role from 1945 to until 1959. Leaving the mission, she moved to London for a training course in moral welfare. She returned to Australia and became a social worker for the Anglican Church in Australia, working in Aboriginal Australian communities in Queensland.