Sydney Festival Digital Archive

Black Diggers by Tom Wright (2014)

Remembrance of our fallen servicemen and women gained social and cultural traction from the late 1990s but one group of soldiers remained largely unheralded.

In Black Diggers, director Wesley Enoch turned remembrance into a reckoning with our history, illuminating the overlooked stories of Aboriginal soldiers who fought for a nation that denied them citizenship.

Enoch’s powerful staging also threw a spotlight on racism, mateship and the bitter aftershocks of war. The production’s emotionally charged finale left many in tears.