Kullark (Home) and The Dreamers

With humane irony the Western Australian poet Jack Davis in these two plays gives a painful insight into the process of colonisation and the transformation of his people. In Kullark the action covers the death of the Aboriginal leader Yagan in 1833, the forcible separation of families at the Moore River Settlement a century later and discrimination against black returned servicemen after World War II. In The Dreamers these elements are gathered together in the story of a country town family and old Uncle Worru, who, in his dying days, recedes from urban hopelessness to the life and language of the Nyoongah spirit which in him has survived 'civilisation'. Front cover Ernie Dingo as Yagan in the National Theatre Company production of Kullark, Perth 1979