The Cherry Pickers was written in 1968 and is historically the most significant play in Aboriginal/Australian literature for it is the first drama to be written in English by an Aboriginal and it became the first dramatic production of modern theatre, creating a three act dramatisation preformed publicly by a Black cast.

This play was workshopped first by the Mews Theatre Workshop in Sydney in 1971 and shortly after, was performed by the Nindethana Theatre in Fitzroy, Victoria, again with an Aboriginal cast.

The playwright refused to allow further production in other states of Australia in a effort to focus the attention of the theatrical community within the non-Aboriginal Australia on the fact that not one private or government organisation was, at that time supporting or creating an avenue to train Aboriginal actors and performers to participate in the arts. This protest and withdrawal came at a time when it was common practice for film and theatre production companies to draw upon trained people from overseas, tint their skins with stage paint and cast such actors in roles as ‘Aborigines’. The popular TV series Boney was a casse in point where a New Zealand actor was brought in to play the lead role as an Aboriginal.

The Cherry Pickers resurfaced in 1972 in Redfern where a small group of Black actors, in conjunction with the playwright, performed a script reading and tried to win public and government support to finance the performance of the play and establish a National Aboriginal Theatre Foundation. These efforts proved fruitless.

Since those days, however, there is now a developed body of exceptionally skilful Aboriginal actors and actresses, as well as an emergence of highly creative playwrights such as Jack Davis, Richard Walley, Bob Merritt, Eva Johnson etc. One may ask: Why this sudden proliferation of talent from the Black Community, onto the national and international stage?

The answer is, of course, the previous exclusion and denial of opportunity to Black talent, which has always been here. Blacks have always been masters of dramatisation in traditional culture. In fact , drama has been a natural and rhythmic part of Aboriginals’ life from the dawn of time. One could truthfully say, in this context, that non-Aboriginal Australians couldn’t see the forest for the trees.

In 1985 was revised. The original narration at the beginning of The Cherry Pickers was expanded become the present prologue, which reinforces the context within which the body of the play emerges. This prologue was workshopped during the First National Black Playwrights Conference held in Canberra in January 1987. As a result of the workshopping process, some of the original roles were combined to reduce the number of actors required for production.

From that same historic Black Playwrights Conference came the impetus to form the Aboriginal National Theatre Trust, ANTT, with the objective of laying a foundation for theatrical production and training in the Arts for Blacks. It is a formation which well deserves the fullest possible support so that the Aboriginal voice of this land is no longer bound nor chained by economic circumstances from free cultural presentation.

Full circle for The Cherry Pickers – what more appropriate time for this play to emerge in book form than in 1988 some seventeen years after its first introduction upon the stage, so high-lighting the cultural resurgence and indomitable spirit of the Aboriginal People, who still, despite the odds, maintain a continuity, an unswerving integrity to maintain our humanity, our integral spirituality, our rights to justice in a world that has so far failed to develop a real level of honesty and integrity in recognising Aboriginals’ full entitlement and to deal in justice by recognising our possession and our ownership of this our land, our right to self determination along with the return of a viable land base and right for our cultural continuance.

The Cherry Pickers is a play of humanity, of the search for justice, of a return to spirituality. It is an intimate, albeit dramatised, glimpse of the family. It is a communication, a gift that, should your heart glimpse the key, will enable you to understand what is meant when Aboriginals demand integrity as the only basis upon which Blacks can begin to negotiate justice.

Kevin Gilbert

EXCERPT

The Cherry Pickers - Cast

Cast

EMMA:          Old woman with warm humorous personality. In red, yellow and black polkadot dress.

SUBINA:        Initiated; very old, thin, with great dignity and humour. In old black dress, red waistband, yellow blouse.

BUBBA:         Old fat woman able to explode into jellies of laughter. In red dirndl dress, white tennis shoes and a purple scarf on head.

BET-BET:       Aged 6-7; thin. Hair matted, dusty in dirty old dress too long for her.

PRIVATE:      Old; thin, mischievous personality. Small build, dressed dirtily but elegantly.

PHONSO:      Aged 12-14; very active but sullen moods, likeable. In overalls.

CHUCKSA:    Old man; firm. In overalls and felt hat.

ETTIE:            Very pregnant; more townish. Dressed in green flowing dress.

TOMMOLO:  30-40; active, earnestly high strung. In jeans, white shirt and jacket.

ZEENA:          In 30’s; firm, lithe volatile. In yellow skirt and red blouse.

TOODLES:     A derelict; constantly sucking from wine bottles. Dressed in tattered cast offs.

Cast for Prologue

(All actors wear face masks or very heavy make up)

I AM, Great Creator

REDCOAT                                                                                                     TOODLES

BUNGAREE

1ST ABORIGINAL MAN                                                                              TOMMLO

2ND ABORIGINAL MAN

CAPTAIN COOK                                                                                         CHUCKSA

COLONIST

JERRI                                                                  

ELEENA, 1st WIFE                                           

SON                                                                   

DAUGHTER                                                        

2ndWIFE                                                            

3rdWIFE                                                                                          

PROLOGUE

SCENE ONE

In front of the curtain, enter BUNGAREE mimicking the Governor,

but with a heavily made up face, almost clown like.

He speaks in a highly theatrical voice.

BUNGAREE: To introduce this play we must digress

irreverently perhaps – for relevance –

in words and manners of a time long gone

and have the pioneers each one confess

for each his part in the white founders’ lie

that bodies such as I did not exist

nor exercised a ruling owners hand

o’er these great lands that England did desire

the thought, the founding thought

sought out a ruse: avoid these

complex issues poised by me,

claiming this land was terra nullis

denying me my rightful sovereignty

and thus they drew a cloak of burning scorn

a web of lies to strangle human right

to kill the body e’re the world grew wise

and bury deep the carcasses from sight

what weight to them that mothers’ children, babes

a’suckling at the breast be murder’sly killed

and cast while screaming still alive on coals

so long as terror to their hearts instilled.

These ghastly crimes, these murders called for worse

or rather, accurate, euphemisms than

‘punitive party’ and ‘dispersals’ – still

more furtive words cloaked war and genocide.

[ Peering over heads of audience to back of theatre,

as clapsticks and didgeridoos sound softly from the back. ]

Look! Look! From yonder bushes peer

a face lit up with lights, its eyes a’coal

of burning fury on the wings of time

200 years, five hundred thousand burning native souls

aglow aglow demanding justice done

the war drums pound, the broken spear reset

in plastic with new technology

five years forever ‘Ash Wednesdays’ rain down

waters pollute in some green mystic fear

the school ablaze where taught and learnt too well

the graduate in 200 years of play

comes out a pawn to knight, deflowers the king

and checkmates him in his own murderous way.

Therefore you sit as witnesses maybe

and jurors – aye, as judges in a court

to look, behold and try to understand

the malice and injustice that is wrought!!

And look, beyond the web, the tangled skein

as people laugh and play, the stretching thread

holds them back in brief and publicly

from giving way to wailing for their dead.

Look back and look beyond to history

to know your country’s birth, to know the truth

or so is your love so base – built on deceit –

Then lo! The monstrous march of burning feet…

            [ Theme music of ‘Stole My Country’. CURTAIN OPENS. He exits. ]

SCENE TWO

Magically ethereal setting. Large parallel mirrors reflect to infinity. Creation time. Floodlights with prism in front casts rainbows about the stage. Arid desert background with a few delicate trees and a large rock is centre right. On stage is I AM, dressed in a black body stocking to which has been sewn hundreds of mirrors which scatter the rainbows and lights. He is a very old Aboriginal man with a long snow white beard. He taps over the ground with a stick grumbling.

I AM:              Ah. Not enough clay here. Too much sand. Now too much sand in a man’s craw wouldn’t do him or anyone else any good now would it? Ah, a rock!! A rock should be perfect. [ Calling ] Hey, Gabrielle, Gabrielle!! Bring me that would you? Gabrielle??? Hump. Gone on strike those other those others have. I’ll have to tell Gabrielle to be less patient with them. I’m convinced more than ever that over indulgence is a disaster. I won’t use the same mould after all. I’ll model everything on the rock and make it last. This rock will be my final inspiration, my masterpiece. Saturday. I’ll be please when Sunday, comes around - my day of rest at last. My craftsmanship has improved. I wont be so physical with this lot. I’ll leave out the macho and concentrate on the SPIRIT. Yes – ah yes. I’ll break the old mould. I must be careful that I’m not too repetitious. A quambat, a numbat, a dingbat, a wombat, a marsupial mouse, a kangaroo, a wallaby. Should have thought of this before – leaves lions and tigers, bull bisons and ferocious wolves for dead – all this gentle, velvety stuff. Throw in a few dinosaurs and – [ Pauses contemplatively ] Ah yes, now the matter of coup d’`etat, aristocracy – all that vanity and humbug we don’t need, and ho! ho! of course the dreaded things are yet to come as men travail. Well, I’ll protect this fellah a bit. I’ll ingrain his habits, a bit. That way he’ll never get a dose of AIDS because he wont get of his bum! He will only be moved by the Spirit, the Law and the Law and Love. I’ll make the model out of rock and make his and the rock spirit as one.

[ The rock moves as I AM probes at it. 1ST ABORIGINAL MAN rises out of the rock.]

1ST ABORIGINAL MAN: Hey, old man! What you pushin’ an’ carvin’ me about for like that? I was havin’ a nice sleep. What for you want to wake me up?

I AM:              I didn’t ‘wake you’ I just created you. Now listen, the meek are here to inherit the earth. Now to do that, the meek have to understand all about the earth – to love and know and cherish it. You are made of rock, and clay is sacred see? – because I created that too. All the Law is carved into these rocks, this earth, to guide you. I’ve scattered a few ribs around now go out and multiply.

1ST ABORIGINAL MAN: I’ll be in that like a shot!

I AM:              You go, I want to make sure your children find you in the dark.

[ Picks up white clay. ]

                        We’ll use this white clay to make MY mark.

[ He paints tribal markings on 1ST ABORIGINAL MAN, who exits with a whoopee call. I AM watches him depart. ]

I AM:              I over emphasised that little bit for continuous creation. Could have made it less cumbersome, less traumatic – like the gum trees, perhaps – wasps and ants to spread the pollen? Maybe three loud cries and look under the yam top? Too late to change my mind now. I’ll make something special for this one, this man, what? Ah yes a platypus –

                                    [ I AM fashions the rock. }

Coming along nicely. Yes a kangaroo, a tiger – NO – too fierce. Alright then, alright, I’ll make a tiger-striped dog, tame in comparison. There that’s it for the day. Knock off time. I’ll whack the Aboriginal spirits of all future generations into these rocks, streams and trees, so the supply will always equal the demand. There! It’s done!! Now, let there be LIGHT!!!

[ Powerful floodlights illuminate stage. Enter 1ST ABORIGINAL MAN followed by SON and DAUGHTER. ]

1ST ABORIGINAL MAN: Hey boss, that multiplying thing has to be your greatest invention. I no sooner left you than bango I found a beautiful factor. She summed me up straight away to multiply and look, look what I’ve got!

                                    [ Pushes his children forward. Enter 2ND ABORIGINAL MAN. ]

2ND ABORIGINAL MAN: Hey boss, you comin’ to the corroboree tonight, I got a new song for you.

1ST ABORIGINAL MAN: Hey boss, you comin’ with me now huntin’ emu. Big fat fellahs near the lagoon.

I AM:              Look fellahs, I’ve got to hop and see what Gabrielle and those other blokes are up to. I’ll have a revolution on my hands if I don’t get back there quick and lively! I’ll come to the corroboree tonight and we’ll go hunting together as well. Now, if you don’t need anything, I’ve carved it all for you in the Dreaming, for all time. Remember when you sit at the campfire and sing the sacred chants, when there are two or three of you gathered together, there shall I be also forever and ever.

                                    [ I AM exits. ]

1ST and 2ND ABORIGINAL MEN: So long boss, see you at the corroboree.

[ They sit, hands under their chins, contemplating. Enter ELEENA obviously looking for some article. ]

1ST ABORIGINAL MAN: Hey, that old I AM sure had a good eye for carvin’, hey? He shaped this one real perfect I reckon.

2ND ABORIGINAL MAN: Hey, you lookin’ for me, Eleena?

ELEENA:        No You ain’t that lucky. No, I’m looking’ for Jerri. Did Jerri do it yet?

2ND ABORIGINAL MAN: Did Jerri do what?

ELEENA:        Make that drone pipe.  Old I AM said we need music. He started to make a harp but changed his mind. Said it would warp in this hot country and would inhibit the freedom of a woman’s movements. He also said it was cruel on animal guts and sinews. The last I saw of him he took Jerri out to teach him how to train the termites to chew out the middle of the pipe to make it hollow. As he was taking off again the boss yelled out to me, “Did Jerri do?” I said, “Not yet.” And he yelled, “No. No! Didgerridoo is the name for the drone pipe.” And he laughed all the way back to the tree. Some people sure get their kicks the funniest way!!

1ST ABORIGINAL MAN: Here comes Jerri now.  Did you do it, Jerri?

                                    [ Enter Jerri carrying didgerridoo. ]

JERRI:            Did I do what? What did Jerri do now?

ELEENA:        Did Jerri do the didgerridoo, like the old boss told you to?

JERRI:            Hey? Here listen to this.

[ JERRI plays the didgeridoo. Others join in clapping their kylies and chanting softly. ELEENA starts a sinuous dance.  1st ABORIGINAL MAN joins her in face to face, knee touching corroboree. Music fades, as 2nd ABORIGINAL MAN and JERRI exit. ]

1ST ABORIGINAL MAN: Hey Eleena, that was a pretty good suggestion that was.

ELEENA:        What suggestion?

1ST ABORIGINAL MAN: That one about the ‘go out and multiply’ bit.

ELEENA:        Oh I dunno. If men had the babies and did the multiplying, now that might be a good idea, I reckon

1ST ABORIGINAL MAN: No. I didn’t mean that. I know its hard to grind nardoo, dig yams, climb after possums and dig them out, look after kids no one to help you much, no one to talk to. You’re not getting’ any younger, either. No. One and one makes two. Now two ain’t multiplyin’ is it. I mean two full stop. I reckon you should have another woman to talk to, to help you with the work, to help you feed the kids and look after them at night. Two and two and – say we take Nuranjella to multiply up to three?

ELEENA:        Nuranjella! That old woman! She’s carpin’ and growlin’ already about how I don’t chase the kids up enough. She criticises my cooking and my camp, ohh! NO!!!

1ST ABORIGINAL MAN: Alright, that’s settled then. We’ll take Kalananga. She’s soft and pretty like you and a good worker. Not as pretty as you, you two would get on well together. That will make three of us. Now if I take Mireenul to help as my wife, that will multiply to four of us. That will help a lot and everyone will be very happy. I’ll run and grab that Kalananga straight away in case someone else gets such a great idea as us!!

[ Lights fade, chants barely audible. Enter the two wives. Sounds of women’s laughter above muted didgerridoo. Tempo and volume of music and chants increases. Lights increase, revealing 1st ABORIGINAL MAN reclining against the rock with ELEENA and the wives caressing him, feeding him fruit and softly laughing. Enter 2nd ABORIGINAL MAN looking very worried. ]

2ND ABORIGINAL MAN: Hey. Hey! Somethin’ is happenin’. Old Mabung said that the ‘bugeene’ ghost people are crossin’ over the country. They take their skin off like a snake and hang it out over the bushes to dry out after the rain. They’ve got a big mob of things that look a bit like huge wombats and they go “MOOOOOOMOOOOO”. And little things that eat everythin’ off the ground and cry “BAAAAA-BAAAAA”, all the time. Bad spirit fellahs, can’t tucker or water and they eat the moo ones up.

1st ABORIGINAL MAN: Don’t you believe those mabung stories. All yarmb’ldyin that fellah. He have had dream like me about the ‘bugeene’ ghost people. I’ll tell ya: I saw me, the red kangaroo, hopping on the back of the gold circle that the ‘bugeene’ held in his hand. I was lookin’ back over my shoulder and callin’ out to you mob. See? This is our skin, this fellah. Follow me. Keep hoppin’. Keep hoppin’. And then I saw in my dream a big white whurly. A wiltja like you never saw before and on top of it my totem, my skin, the red kangaroo and on the other side was emu. And the totem said, “Keep comin’. Keep hoppin’. This is you, your country. No one can take it. It’s bad luck if someone tries to take your totem off you – a curse. They have to give it back. They have to come back to the Dreaming and find out the proper way for that totem. Then that way they’ll make it alright, maybe.” Anyhow, I woke up in a fear, but I know that the red kangaroo, the emu will keep on comin’ and hoppin’ up. These dreams are just tellin’ us to keep a proper track of the Law. I gotta do my kangaroo dance now. Come on Eleena!

[ ELEENA and 1st ABORIGINAL MAN begin to dance – very gently hopping sparring with each other, then gracefully feeding, lifting their heads to listen, scratching gently and feeding again as chants and the didgerridoo gently play. FADE OUT. CURTAIN. ]

SCENE THREE

On beach, with background of low bushes and ocean. Enter CAPTAIN COOK in period costume with white face mask. He is accompanied by REDCOAT also with white face mask. They admire the country.

COOK:            The King! The King! How pleased the King shall be to give his title to these generous lands where the natives live in such luxury! Look, look! The greatest gifts we bear of trinkets, axes, blankets, cloth be all thrown widely back upon the golden sands by Black Sam, his mistress and their kind. Amazingly they want for nothing here. How can we pay them, rather bribe, ‘tis true, these sable devils to uphold a truce, until we raise the Flag and haste from here?

REDCOAT:    A trick of tongue is all it takes I’m sure. We cannot enter discourse for ‘consent of the natives’ to surrender up their lands, especially when they refuse our gift or rent. A trick, a trick a little moment now: to tell the world a lie. I must confess I do not advocate a lie, but lie we must. Plant now the Flag and deem the land is ours beyond dispute, in bold hand write: terra nullius.

COOK:            Waste, waste? A wasteland then. This Eden is a gift of God and claimed by none before us – to this day a wasteland, bare of living souls so we can rightly say these shores are diadems for our England. For our England then, for England brave and true, for good King George and his most royal line, I take this Colony of New South Wales. For such a jewel as this ten times ten thousand lies I’d tell. This land is for the King – the glory mine!

                                    [ COOK solemnly plants the Union Jack. ]

Don’t watch me. Forget the first salute and watch instead for those bushes quivering, watchfully, a million eyes are trying to comprehend our ritual and if they do we, all of us are dead!

[ COOK and REDCOAT exit, right. Simultaneously, ELEENA and 1st ABORIGINAL MAN enter left, both with tribal markings. 1st ABORIGINAL MAN has spear and fishing net in hand, ELEENA has digging stick and dilly bag. He lays spear down, shakes out net and casts it upon the water, while ELEENA digs and sings yam song. ]

ELEENA:        Quick, I hear big kangaroo coming through the bush!

1ST ABORIGINAL MAN: No. Too heavy. RUN!!

                                    [ They exit left.. Enter COOK and REDCOAT from the right. ]

COOK:                        What have we? Heathen artefacts. Take care! They may still be near.

[ He examines net. ]

A fine piece of work. A memento, heh? I’ll take it. I’ll take it. Finders keepers and Banks will love these little jewel like plants caught in the mesh.

REDCOAT:    They’ve gone back to their hollow logs and caves by now. I’ll take this fine spear. maybe I’ll even learn to throw it. It’ll be worth a sovereign or two to a collector, I’ll wager – that is, if I can get the heathen smell off it.

[ They exit right. ELEENA and 1st ABORIGINAL MAN enter left dressed as before. Sounds of Aboriginal music. ]

1ST ABORIGINAL MAN: We do that kangaroo dance now, hey? It’s the proper time to do that dance now. See, that grass wavin’ in the right direction, then rocks shimmerin’ with the Eternal Spirit flowing’ through us all. Now we dance for all of us, hey?

[ They gracefully face each other, using hands kangaroo fashion to flick at each other’s body, then bend in dance to nibble grass. ELEENA springs back in kangaroo stance, laughing. 1st ABORIGINAL MAN nibbles at grass, straightens up suddenly in alarm. ]

                        Hssst ?

[ A shot booms out. He falls heavily, kicks like a kangaroo shot in spine and semicircles, head down. He lifts head high as ELEENA bounds to him. A second shot booms out. He heavily smacks backwards, dead and remains on stage. ELEENA exits right, screaming. Enter a COLONIST in white mask, speaking in very broad Oxford English accent. ]

COLONIST:   Bai jove! A bloody good shot, what? Right in the head too. Oh, if only I could stuff the dratted thing in the usual way of course, and hang such a wonderful specimen over my fireplace, along with the buffalo I got in India. Vermin everywhere in this country, kick it out of sight.

[ He kicks body. Kookaburra laughs and he points gun in its direction. ]

Ha, what’s that ?

                        [ He fires. ]

Bang, got it! The jolly old thing is one of those pestiferous birds that laugh. Ruins every good night’s sleep with its morning racket. Good riddance to vermin, I say. Such a bloody uncivilised country, eh what? Two things we do have in common. We each and all of us have to drink water and eat.

[ Pulls out bag with ‘POISON’ written on it. ]

Now, I’ll put some of my finest white crystals into this flour and drop a gram or so in their drinking spring. Hah!

[ He sprinkles poison and exits, right. 1st ABORIGINAL MAN arises, shaking head groggily. ]

1ST ABORIGINAL MAN: I saw the inner earth, the rock of heart, the cycles and the change of time that winds us back to life and spirit in a form to some slight degree from our past norm. What lesson shall I learn or relearn, now? What is there now to learn, for being complete and one with every sacred thing on earth, I am a central part of their heartbeat. And emu then and look such wondrous things as this fine beak, these lovely eyes and wings. My spirit  now joins the emu clan.

[ He does emu dance, picking up seeds, jumping back in a pretend leap from a grasshopper. Drinks from poisoned water hole, flops, kicks, convulses, dies. Enter COLONIST from right. ]

COLONISTS: Got him! Got him! Nothing like a drop of poison in the old water hole to clear the vermin out.

                        [ COLONIST exits left. Off-stage a BANG is heard. ]

                        [ Off-stage. ]

Got him ! Got him !!

                        [ Theme music and CURTAIN. ]

SCENE FOUR

I AM remains motionless, stage left enter BUNGAREE mimicking The Governor dressed in period costume and wearing a white mask.

BUNGAREE: Crow out the King of England’s name and at the thrice

                        be they not bend the knee to supplicate

                        surrendering their bodies and their land

                        let the woodlands ring with musketry their fate;

                        what if they are benighted and can’t speak,

nor interpret our clear and valid tongue

‘tis but a mark of low intelligence

fit by their heathen way for whip and gun.

Inevitably we move to colonise

This land and inexorably apply

strong Nature’s law to bend, exterminate

the weak inferior being, to confiscate

their all, their patrimony their estate

and deem it good perhaps to reap such crops of fate.

And what if this be diametrically opposed

to all our favourite theories good and right

and justice England rules the waves anon

and who amongst shall contest her might ?

our actions bell the truth, unnatural, false

such rhetoric as we dig victims’ graves

reveals a basic weakness in our law

at heart our royal line is that of knaves.

“Keep white the strain”

your duty bound ‘tis clear

to slit the throats of women you possess

unless they capture you your very soul

and bind you to them in a humanness.

Cut down the brute

with brutal strength to match

with less compassion dispatch his ‘breeders’ then

lest, from the racial mix the nits will hatch

to cast revengeful shadows over men.

Bell the witness, sound the drum, bring forth

herewith the very fact authenticate before your eyes

the white historians’ collective evidence

grim, establishing the pioneers’ bare lies

from the horses mouth the truth and dripped in blood.

Man the boats! The floundering ship’s a’list

wrecked on human boulders of our fate.

Look! Look! The witness comes – beware!

Lest from his folds he rise with dagger drawn

Look! Look! Be on your guard lest you

shall fall and fall succumb to

love’s fierce glare - - -

Beware! Lest the great temptress love and justice, truth

move you to humanness that may lurk there!!

                        [ Exits ]

I AM:                          [ rising slowly upward on mobile, sings ]

                        Stole my country

                        killed the kangaroo

now I live on bit o’ land

like Jacky in the zoo

Too much baccaddal

jirri-jirri tea

too many hand-out

all about you see

Got no work – on

social all day

too much plurry hand – out

the whiteman say

Guv’ment give us money

all the day

look about around you

see my pay

No clean runnin’ water

our tucker all flour

bit o’ bully beef or

mutton gone sour

Our babies got trachoma

blind in the eyes

sick and nose all runny

dyin’ like flies

No self-determination

whiteman decides

to keep us penned like cattle

while the facts he hides

Stole my country

kill the kangaroo

now I live on bit o’ land

like Jacky in the zoo.

                        [ Exits slowly backwards, still singing. CURTAIN. ]