WAYS - two boys doing homework research get more than they were looking for.

SYNOPSIS – WAYS

Two fourteen year old Australian boys, Talon and Toby, magically invoke via Computer (a supporting character), two great Australian writers – the novelist Christina Stead and the poet Christopher Brennan.

Confusion abounds. The novelist thinks she is dreaming, the poet thinks he is in an institution to dry out, Toby thinks the writers are home invaders and Talon believes they are Guides for the Tribulation.

Christina Stead believes her dream has returned her to her hated father’s house on Sydney Harbour and is worried he will appear. She is offended by Brennan whom she knows by reputation from the old days in Sydney which she had escaped many decades previously.  Brennan is offended by the language and manners of the boys. He mistakes Stead for a medico and cannot work out whether the boys are also inmates or orderlies. Talon’s responses are hopelessly confused by the Pentecostal dogma which he has absorbed. Toby is very frightened and feels responsible for this drama being enacted in his home. Eras collide: Milton vs rap.

Toby decides he must get help and tried to enlist Talon in his scheme but Talon, convinced they are being saved by these ‘Guides’ thwarts his design. On hearing Brennan and Stead quote Milton, Talon comes to suspect that the interlopers are not Guides but fiends so seeks further help from Computer who now sends him two very famous Australian literary characters – twelve year old Dot, lost in the bush and seeking her ‘way’ with the aid of her saviour Kangaroo who can be understood after certain berries have been eaten.

Act 2 sees tensions mount amongst the characters who are mutually suspicious – except for Dot who insists on displaying her gift for recitation and who is thrilled at the possibility of meeting other children for the first time. Talon becomes hysterical. Gradually the computer-summonsed characters confront their anomie and fade back into the ether from which they emerged, leaving the boys alone.

There is a loud knocking – it is Policeman and Policewoman (two supporting characters) bearing grim news.

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