Camp Darwin is a new play written by Gisborne-based South Asian writer, actor, director and teacher Arjun Raina, and based on his personal experience of being held in quarantine at The National Centre for Resilience, Darwin during the height of the COVID Pandemic.
Cast: Matt Barbetti, Angela Down, David Farrington, Lillian Gutteridge, Peter Gutteridge, Kim Johnson, Kate Lawrence, Kate de Prada, Luca Romani, Ivan Sun, Martin Thomas, Hem Tiwary
Audience comments
“The show is wonderful – perfect balance of comedy and sadness. The song and dance routines are brilliant. Talked about it all the way home. Thank you everyone involved, it was a great evening out.”
“It was refreshing to see a show that respected different cultures, that contained pain and humour and men being together and a poignant reminder of the horrors of the covid eruption. Well done, thank you.”
“What a fabulous performance – times that we do not want to remember – very heartfelt and a reminder of the importance of connection and community.”
“I loved it. Such a real depiction. Quite an emotional roller coaster. I laughed and cried.”
“Creative writing with fabulous direction with wonderful actors, superb”
“Wonderful script, sound design and lighting”
About ‘Camp Darwin’, a story of human resilience
A hundred and fifty Australian Citizens and Residents return by a Government aided Qantas flight to Darwin after having been stuck in India for over a year and more. They are taken to the Howard Springs Quarantine Facility in Darwin, Northern Territory. At the Quarantine Centre we meet six of them, Raminder and Dalip, both of Indian origin, Peter Xu, a Chinese Australian and Jack, Larry, and Chris, Australians of Anglo-Saxon heritage.
Welcomed and escorted by members of the Australian Defence Force, they are housed in steel dongas with little porches on which they are allowed to sit masked, to protect the wider community from their potentially virus infected bodies and breath. For fourteen days, these six characters live their restricted lives in these dongas and porches, being tested for Covid three times, each test bringing the threat of a positive result, leading to being moved to the mysterious ‘red zone.’ The living out of the lives of these six characters in the restrictive, and at times oppressive regime of the Quarantine Centre, and within the greater threat and stress of the Coronavirus Pandemic, offers a deeply empathetic insight into the human drama being played out with the lives of Australians desperate to return home to their families and loved ones.
The gruelling testing regime, the surveillance systems and presence of Cops and Guards, the intimacy between strangers, sporadic explosions of humour, of dance, of laughter, the moments of great stress, anger and breakdown, all lead the drama to its climax when on the last day one of the six men tests positive.
Photos by Stephen Mitchell
