Radiance

Playwright: Nowra, Louis
Year: 1993
Type: Play
Edition: Belvoir Street Theatre Company, September 1993

Currency Press, 2000

Synopsis

Cressy, Mae and Nona are half sisters with little in common bar the ghosts from their childhood. They come together for their mother's funeral with the tropical Queensland landscape a spectacular backdrop for their turbulent and often humorous reunion. As the sisters struggle to find common ground they discover a bond that is stronger than the pain of their history. — publisher's blurb

Narrative Locations

Nora Island, Central Queensland, Queensland

Temporal setting: 1990s

Location notes:

Radiance features the fictional Nora Island, identified in the play itself only as being located in North Queensland. In Louis Nowra's introductory essay to the 2000 Currency Press publication of the play and film scripts, 'Women on the Mud Flats', Nowra describes a period of time he spent at Kinka Beach, QLD:

I stayed in a small motel that overlooked the sea. It intrigued me how the ocean would look beautiful one moment and, a few hours later, be transformed into mud flats that seemed to stretch all the way to Great Keppel Island. The island, once inhabited by Aborigines, was a tourist resort of dubious splendour. The best selling T-shirt was 'I got wrecked on Great Keppel' and when I saw the burnt, drunken faces returning on the evening boats I guessed the T-shirts were apt. But it was the sight of an unknown woman walking across the nocturnal mud flats, as they glistened in the moonlight one evening, that stirred my imagination. [...] Heading down the road I was seized by the image of three Aboriginal half-sisters standing on the glistening mud flats staring towards what would become Nora Island (vii).

Coordinates are given for Great Keppel Island.

Quotes

Cressy stands at the open windows face to the breeze.

Cressy: That feels nice. Where's that ferry going?

Mae: Coming back from Nora island. The Japs have built a resort there.

(p. Act One, Sc. 2)

Nona: Hey, let's go, it'll take us a few hours to get to the island.

Mae: You two go.

Nona: No, the three of us. It'll make up for the funeral. We'll make it up to her.

Mae: She's just ashes.

Nona: We have to – we're all she had. This is the only time during the year – only for tow days can you walk over to it. Come on.

Cressy: No. A storm's coming up ... behind the island. The sky looks all brusied.

Nona: In the rain. The lightning!

Cressy: You are crazy.

Nona: I love getting wet. Makes me brand new.

(p. Act One, Sc. 3)

The sound of thunder. The sisters listen.

Cressy: Thunder.

Nona: Moving furniture in heaven.

Cressy goes to the window and stares outside at the gathering storm.

Cressy: The sky's full of electricity.

The other two look out.

Nona: The bats know. Look at them flying home.

Mae: It's one of those storms that will pass over us.

Nona: But we can still go to the island, can't we?

Mae: It's raining.

Nona: It'll pass. You know that. An hour or two. It's full moon tonight – then we'll walk across the flats under the full moon.

(p. Act One, Sc. 3)

Nona: If I can't get a turtle, at least I can get a mud crab for breakfast.

Cressy: The air's so clean and fresh.

Nona: It's better than being inside, isn't it?

Cressy: [dropping bags looking around] Sky's cleared. Twenty-four hours ago I was in London – miserable, miserable London. [Wriggling toes in the mud] Oh, I like it when the mud oozes through my toes.

(p. Act Two, Sc. 1)

The mud flats. An hour later. A distant glow from where the house is on fire. Mae runs on excited.

Mae: It's really burning! It's really burning!

(p. Act Two, Sc. 2)

Small town, North Queensland, Central Queensland, Queensland

Temporal setting: 1990s

Location notes:

Radiance is set in a fictional small town, identified in the play itself only as being located in North Queensland. In Louis Nowra's introductory essay to the 2000 Currency Press publication of the play and film scripts, 'Women on the Mud Flats', Nowra describes a period of time he spent at Kinka Beach, QLD:

In the late 1980s I was staying at Kinka Beach, a few kilometres from Yeppoon in Queensland. [...] I stayed in a small motel that overlooked the sea. It intrigued me how the ocean would look beautiful one moment and, a few hours later, be transformed into mud flats that seemed to stretch all the way to Great Keppel Island. The island, once inhabited by Aborigines, was a tourist resort of dubious splendour. The best selling T-shirt was 'I got wrecked on Great Keppel' and when I saw the burnt, drunken faces returning on the evening boats I guessed the T-shirts were apt. But it was the sight of an unknown woman walking across the nocturnal mud flats, as they glistened in the moonlight one evening, that stirred my imagination. [...] Heading down the road I was seized by the image of three Aboriginal half-sisters standing on the glistening mud flats staring towards what would become Nora Island (vii).

Coordinates are given for Kinka Beach.

Quotes

Cressy: I cam through the town from the airport. Not much has changed. Like the dirt road here. The six palms along the beach have gone.

Mae: Rotted, so they were cut down.

Cressy: Taxi drivers always keep their windows open. I've got dust in my throat.

(p. Act One, Sc. 1)

Cressy: I forgot how hot it gets in the tropics. I'm dripping.

(p. Act One, Sc.1)

Nona: Christ, I'll only stay for a short time then. Anyway, I hate this town. Small towns! Hate them. I was so pleased the day I left. I'd just come back up the beach and the radio was on, and this announcer was saying that there was a rodeo on in Rocky. The biggest for ten years. Mum was asleep on the couch. I wrote her a note and said I was off to Cairns – but I was really off to Ayr, just in case she thought of following me. I was bored living here in this place. Just me and mum. You two were gone. I knew she'd understand. Pretty neat for a fifteen-year-old, eh?

Cressy: But why Ayr?

Nona: The rodeo! If it was the biggest in ten years then Dad was sure to be there.

(p. Act One, Sc. 2)

Mae: You should have seen it when I arrived – unbelievable. A rundown shack. Like it might blow away if you breathed on it. The day I arrived some couple walked through the house taking pictures. They thought it was derelict. I threw them out.

(p. Act One, Sc. 2)

Cressy: I just need to breathe. i forgot about living up here – just before it breaks, a storm sucks up all the air. Breathless.

Nona: Mum always loved this place. It was the only thing she had.

(p. Act One, Sc. 2)

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Radiance

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