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by Jack Davis

This four-act play examines the social and familial challenges faced by Aboriginal people in 1930s Western Australia. The production requires a cast of twelve men and eight women.

Accession 9780868191461 ISBN 9780868191461 Publisher Currency Press

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position_updated_at: 2026-05-11 11:05
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binding_type: Hard Back
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spine_text: INDIGENOUS JACK DAVIS NO SUGAR Currency Press OUTBACK Sawrey UQP

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Topics and Themes

1. **Colonialism & the Dispossession of Indigenous Peoples**
The play is rooted in the violent dispossession of Aboriginal Australians from their land. The forcible removal of the Millimurra-Munday family from the Northam Reserve to the Moore River Native Settlement stands as a direct enactment of colonial power — erasing place, autonomy, and belonging.

The play's central argument is that colonisation is not a historical event but an ongoing structure: land is taken, culture is suppressed, and sovereignty is denied generation after generation.

Connect to books about: colonialism, settler-colonialism, land rights, Indigenous sovereignty, postcolonial theory.

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2. **Racism, White Supremacy & Systemic Oppression**
The play exposes how racism against Indigenous Australians was not merely personal prejudice but was normalised and institutionalised throughout the political and legal system. Characters like Neville and Neal embody a bureaucratic racism that dehumanises while performing the language of "protection."

Davis shows that racist policies informed political, social, and cultural decisions at every level, leaving Aboriginal families constantly fighting to preserve their dignity.

Connect to books about: systemic racism, white supremacy, racial justice, civil rights, institutional discrimination.

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3. **Government Control, Policy & the "Protection" Myth**
The play dramatises how Aboriginal lives were governed by white bureaucrats under the guise of welfare and protection. The so-called "Chief Protector of Aborigines" orchestrates removals for political gain, exposing the contradiction between the language of civilisation and the reality of coercive control.

The play is a direct protest against the machinery of government policy that stripped Indigenous Australians of freedom of movement, employment, family life, and cultural practice.

Connect to books about: government paternalism, welfare policy, carceral systems, bureaucracy and power, the Stolen Generations.

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4. **Family, Resilience & Survival**
At the heart of the play is the Millimurra-Munday family — their bonds, their humour, their grief, and their will to endure. Against relentless hardship, the family unit becomes both a site of resistance and the primary source of meaning and continuity.

Davis ultimately frames survival not as triumph but as an act of ongoing defiance: the family persists despite the forces arrayed against them.

Connect to books about: family under adversity, intergenerational resilience, community solidarity, survival narratives.

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5. **Language, Culture & Indigenous Identity**
Language is a battleground in the play. Indigenous characters speak Nyoongah, pidgin English, and creole — asserting a cultural difference that the colonial system seeks to erase. Davis uses language itself as a form of resistance and a marker of identity.

The play argues that culture and language are inseparable from survival: to lose one's tongue is to lose one's self.

Connect to books about: language and identity, linguistic colonialism, oral traditions, cultural preservation, Indigenous literature.

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6. **The Great Depression & Class, Poverty & Economic Marginalisation**
Set against the backdrop of the 1930s Depression in Australia, the play foregrounds the intersection of race and class. Aboriginal families already living in dehumanising conditions on reserves find their rations cut further, their labour exploited, and their poverty weaponised against them.

The Depression reveals how economic crisis compounds racial inequality — those already marginalised suffer most, and the state's response is punishment, not relief.

Connect to books about: the Great Depression, poverty and inequality, economic marginalisation, labour history, class struggle.

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7. **Resistance, Activism & Political Voice**
Jimmy Munday voices defiant, outspoken resistance throughout the play — calling out hypocrisy, mocking authority, and refusing silence. Davis frames resistance not only as protest but as dignity: the refusal to accept one's own dehumanisation.

Written by a lifelong Aboriginal activist, the play is itself an act of political theatre, demanding that audiences reconcile with historical injustice.

Connect to books about: political resistance, activism, protest literature, social justice movements, Indigenous rights movements.

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8. **Postcolonial Identity & the Clash of Cultures**
The play explores the fractured position of Aboriginal Australians caught between two worlds — unable and unwilling to fully assimilate into white culture, yet forced into dependence on it. Characters like Billy, the black tracker, embody this painful hybridity: complicit in the system that oppresses his own people.

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