BUYBACK

Rhoda, a white foster mother, and Jimmy, her 17-year-old Torres Strait Islander foster son, arrive from interstate at Rhoda's family home for a Christmas reunion/reconciliation. The Children's Services Department is threatening to re-institutionalise Jimmy ( who suffers from physical and mental disabilities) when he turns 18, and a desperate Rhoda hopes for help in avoiding this from her parents and from Jimmy's birth mother, Flo, who is sick in hospital.

But Rhonda's long-estranged parents, Cake-tin and Theodolite, are less than welcoming. And when Jimmy, his brother Dennis and sister-in-law Dolly return to Rhoda's parental home after a night out, the difficulties - or impossibilities - of such reconciliations become starkly apparent.

'Buyback's pluralist script ... dismantles the walls that divide us and shows how, with its messy and violent history, Australia has become a culture partly in denial. Plays set in kitchens, absent mothers and a history of bloody colonialism: you can't live with them, you can't live without them.' Tony Reck, Realtime, Sept 2006

'It's an upbeat show - tasteful but pressing, hilarious and moving... I for one applauded loudly from my chair with goose-bumps running up my arms.' Daniel Vigilante, Impress, Sept 13, 2006