Bastard Territory Play Analysis

Containing earthquakes, massacres, hippies, politicians, ABBA, artists and a gay bar, ‘Bastard Territory’ by Stephan Carleton, covered a lot of topics, but simply put, it was a story about a boy and his parents. Presented by the Queensland Theatre Company and separated into three acts; each covering a different year, 1967, 1975 then 2001, ‘Bastard Territory’ covered the life of married couple Lois and Neville and later on their son Russell, while narrated by an adult Russell acting as a commentator. It began in 1967 Papua New Guinea where Neville was a government worker who oversaw the natives and Lois as his new wife, a well bred Australian woman thrust into the alien world of Papua New Guinea. Then Nanette is introduced, a busy body neighbour, who gave a falsely warm welcome and multiple backhand compliments to Loi, she represents the white society of that time; she holds a superior attitude particularly towards the Papua New Guinea people and. Through act one Lois’s 3 suitors are introduced: political activist Marius, hippie and artist Cliff and Pita the houseboy, the shocking twist being that they are all Papua New Guinean men. The two main points for act one is Neville witnesses a …show more content…
The theme was introduced as a “party trick” in the first act, showing the naivety of the characters, then again in the second act, tectonic plates was used to represent the aftermath of a disaster, both the earthquake that ruined Lois and Russell’s home and the disasters of Lois’s illegitimate pregnancy and Russell’s breakdown. Finally, in the third act ‘Tectonic Plate’ was used as the name of Russell’s gay bar and art gallery, which gave a positive turn to the theme, showed that Russell, finally growing into himself and out of his confusion and accepting how his life started on such shaky