This September, Queensland Theatre Company’s production, ‘Black Diggers’, is coming to Brisbane to commemorate the centenary of World War I.
After a sold-out season in Sydney, the all-male, all-indigenous cast are bringing the critically acclaimed show to QPAC as part of Brisbane Festival. Directed by Wesley Enoch and written by Tom Wright, 'Black Diggers' focuses on the untold story of the thousand indigenous soldiers who served in WWI to defend their nation. The play shows progression through three stages of the soldiers’ involvement in the war: enlistment, life as a soldier, and returning home.
With a small cast playing multiple roles, 'Black Diggers' proved to be a challenging piece of work,according to cast member Guy Simon. “It was so difficult to stay in character because there was only eight or nine of us and the scenes were quite, well, not too short, but we'd have to quickly change from one to another, and sometimes you wouldn’t even leave the stage ... I was playing a mother, I was playing a German soldier, I was playing a digger, and I had to switch from one to another and it was quite challenging at times.”
Guy, who also played a German professor, a stockman, a soldier and a reporter, found his role as a woman one of the most challenging. “When I first read the script I kind of just went 'how in - how am I going to play a mother? I don't understand.' I talked to Wesley [Enoch] on how we were going to do it and we tried out putting a wig on and a dress and other things – it was quite challenging because ... we didn't want to parody that this mother was worried about her son going to war. We didn't want to make light of what was happening.
“But I think we got there, and the audience loved it. It was good because ... it became an every-mother; everyone related to this one character, and because it's the only female character in the whole show it really added a light moment and some humour as well.”
Extensive research went into the making of 'Black Diggers', drawing, in-particular, from interviews with the families of 15 indigenous diggers who served in WWI. The cast even had the chance to speak one-on-one with war veterans to get a real sense of the feeling and atmosphere of war. “I'm lucky because we had Uncle George Bostock there, who was an indigenous man who served, and went to war. We got to speak to him just one-on-one... You get a sense of what it was like. His war was completely different to WWI, but you get some sort of sense... and because we had David Williams [the project researcher] there we could ask him all of these different questions.”
Guy admits there is a lot of physical character work involved with ‘Black Diggers’. “Because I played so many different characters [a challenge] was trying to find accents and trying to find different ways to make these characters different within a split second.”
On top of that, the cast were trained with real rifles, how to aim and even how to put them down correctly (of course, in the actual production they use prop-rifles). Everything was made to look as authentic as possible.
While this play will have a significant impact on many people, especially those who have a family history entwined with war, Guy was surprised to learn just what ‘Black Diggers’ meant to him. “When I first started it was... it just seemed like an indigenous play, but within the first week we had someone from the War Memorial, Doctor David Williams [visit the cast]. He had this book of diggers, and I looked in the back of it and there was someone with my last name ... and I end up finding out that this guy was my great-grandfather who served in WWI. David ended up looking up his whole journey throughout the war and where he travelled to and when he came back. And all of a sudden it weighed... there was some sort of weight in play, personally, for me, and some sort of responsibility to get it right and get the story out and tell it to the best of my ability.”
With the 100 year anniversary of the beginning of WWI having recently passed (28th July), the memorials have brought out emotion in everyone. Even the cast members — who rehearsed and rehearsed, and are trained to discipline their emotions and actions — couldn’t always keep it together. “There's one moment that sticks out for me and every time I think about it – I'm starting to tear-up now... it's this moment when I'm playing mum and I only have about three lines, and my son has come back from war ... and he's been back for a couple of years, and he has post-traumatic stress. It's clearly obvious that he has it. And I walk out and speak with my father, and then I looked over at Hunter who played my son, Hunter Page, and he had the biggest tear I've ever seen in someone's eye and it hit the light perfectly, and it just set me off. I didn't even plan to cry or anything, I just planned to go out there, say my three lines then leave, but I ended up almost missing my line because I was so emotional.”
'Black Diggers' will be the first Queensland production to ever be broadcast live to regional Queensland. On the 8th October, the show will be telecast to venues in Ayr, Bundaberg, Cairns, Gladstone, Mackay, Mount Isa, Rockhampton, Toowoomba and Townsville.
Black Diggers plays at QPAC Playhouse 24th September until 12th October.
