Source Material
Synopsis: Half a Life
It is the Cold War. Young servicemen are keen to serve their countries, and Britain 'needs to have its bomb'. The Australian Prime Minister, besotted by a newly crowned young Queen, hastily signs over to Britain a tract of Australian desert for bomb testing. Travelling from all parts of Australia, and from Britain, young men set out on a spree. The desert posting is remote, and dusty, though the food, the booze and the leisure time are plentiful and uniforms are not compulsory. Fifty years later, those same young men have unusual health problems, and their wives and families nurse them through, as their tales of the desert start to emerge. Back in the 1950s, the men are preparing for the latest tests, in the company of the scientists. They are constructing towers for the bombs, and experiments involving mock towns, military equipment, mannequins and animals tethered in the line of fire. Between the blasts, the men encounter the outback, and they roam freely through scrub and sand. Dust swirls through the camp. The new bomb experiments are constructed on the country where previous tests took place. As they work in the 'hot zones', complex and sometimes ignored protocols aim to protect the men from radiation exposure. In turn, some will encounter the horror of Aboriginal families caught in the blasts. As their tour of duty ends, one more blast is made ready. Nothing prepares the men for the beauty and the power of the bomb, and they watch with their backs to the blast and their hands across their eyes, seeing their own bones x-rayed by the intense light. And nothing has prepared them for the aftermath of the experiments, which continue to play out in their ill health and changed lives.
Paul Brown Playwright /Academic - Personal Communication 2008
Script Excerpts - Half a Life
On the Blast:
Jim : And it was like someone opening an oven door, and the, the hot air came out, at you, and you were standing there in summer temperatures in, the middle of the Australian bush (laughs).
Ken : (KM15): And then you see this thing coming towards you, it was the shock wave, well we didn't know then, yeah if you've seen shock waves, if you've seen mirages, everything's, everything's like jumbled up, its coming towards you, 'what the hell's that?'
[...]
Hambone : And then all of a sudden it hit 'Bang!' the second blast...
Doug : (DB21,23): You get two explosions with an atomic bomb going off. You get the initial bang then you get the… 'nother one, the shock wave rolls in after the flash... ya know, bang. The shock wave hit us. Knocked me over, on the face, it was that heavy.*1
[...]
On the After-Effects:
Kay Burandt : (KB29) Then he started to get this... thickness in the throat and not being able to swallow it used to all come out the stoma tube (takes a breath) and then it would back up and come out the nose, it was terrible, poor bugger. And he really... ccouldn't, you know do anything... he couldn't get it down. So we went back and Doctor put him into hospital. (pause)
(KB35/29) And then when they took these tests, they found out the cancer had gone to his bones, and it had also gone into his bloodstream, so he couldn't have any more chemotherapy. So... he said and it's too far gone he said to operate he said it's... That... Type. That if we do anything it'll just burst out further.
[...]
(KB126) Ah he, he was, er how can I say it, he was very handsome in his uniform. Very handsome without it (laughs ).
(KB47) He couldn't produce a voice because it was all closed off with the cancer. He must've been in terrible pain. As it was, he... it became his face and his neck (gestured) all became one.
[...]
(KB49) I held his hand and I said to him darling I said (breath) I have got the money, from the Veteran Affairs. I knew that was worrying him so I told him that I had got it even though I hadn't.*2
[Script excerpts (with footnotes) reproduced (with permission) from: Brown, Paul F. 2006. "Maralinga: Theatre from a Place of War" in McAuley, G. (ed), Unstable Ground: The Politics of Place and Performance . Peter Lang, Berne.]
Footnotes:
*1 - This is part of a scene included in the version of the play presented at Leeds Civic Hall on 20 November 2005. Eleven veterans contributed the fragments which make up the scene, with one of the widows, Dawn, standing in for her husband, using images and words he imparted to her while he was alive.
*2 - The play contains a number of long monologues such as this one from Kay Burandt, constructed from a remarkable interview made in 2003 by researcher Clare Grant. Speeches in verbatim theatre tend to be long, giving effect to the internal rhythm of people's stories.
