some time blind

Dominic Barton, the son of Liberal party stalwart and legend – Don Barton, returns to Australia after many years away working as an aid worker with a NGO in African trouble spots. He brings with him his new wife, Lynne, a coloured South Africa. Dominic has been blinded, hopefully temporarily, by a land mine in Rwanda and has returned to Australia to help his recovery. He returns to a family that have issues of their own. After retiring from politics due to a stroke Don is planning to re-enter politics by running for the Federal Seat of Bradford, the seat he held for many years prior to his stroke. He’s supported in this by his faithful wife, Janet, and his daughter, Kali. Unbeknownst to her father Kali, the black sheep of the family, is secretly hiding Ali, an Iraqi refugee, in her Melbourne home who escaped from the Woomera Detention centre in Easter 2002. When Kerry Malleson, a former long time adviser of the Barton family who is now working for the Labour Party, hears of Dominic’s return to Australia he approaches Dominic with an opportunity – to run against his father for the seat of Barton. The play follows the lead up to the election and the battle between Don and Dominic with Kerry, Janet and Lynne also forced to choose sides. some time blind is about the returning of sight or clarity to one man – and hopefully a nation. It is about the loss of soul that this country has experienced under what many commentators describe as the “Howardisation” of Australia. A process that has seen “old fashioned” Australian values like family, mateship, compassion and empathy discarded in a never ending grab for money and power. In a country where Executives get $33 million bonuses but we don’t have room for one refugee family – blindness seems a creeping sickness.