Water Wars

A new piece of contemporary Australian performance by Elaine Acworth

Water Wars is a timely and darkly funny exploration of what happens between neighbours as the drought gets longer and tougher and then gets renamed as a ‘dry’.

Set just in the future – when our communities face on-going water scarcity – Water Wars charts the bumpy road of neighbourliness as tempers fray and niggles turn into frank discussions, that turn into skirmishes, that grow into outright war.

The play speaks to our urgent need to examine how we use water, how we regard the world around us – a very pertinent and immediate subject in southern, central, western and South-East Queensland.

Over the last 5 years, we have all felt the impact of water shortages, and seen personal anecdotes and media coverage combine to imbue our symbols with new meanings.  We are now all ‘branded’ with a new meaning for drought - pervasive images of scarcity, dry dams, dead crops and animals, fractured and desperate human lives – but included now is the divisive notion that we may be the bringers of this fate.

Water Wars explores what this means to the strength and stability of our communities.  It seeks to highlight the importance of ‘community’ by pushing to comical extremes those fault lines of blame, envy and suspicion between neighbours. It places at the heart of the story the fate of a child, Cal, and his dog, Freddo.  He represents the future.  The actions of the adults surrounding him, as they go to war, will have far-reaching consequences on his life, as does the unending media nightmare that pervades his dreams.

The play is a plea for community and tolerance, for balance and optimism as we create the larger world that our children will inhabit.