'Based on the language notebooks of First Fleet surveyor William Dawes, Carter's minimalist text evokes a tentative cross-cultural communication based on echoic mimicry. As in Beckett, so here, much of the meaning resides in the intervals between words. In this most succinct of scripts, much is hinted at as root syllables playfully bandied back and forth begin to morph into more sinister names, commands and denials. William Dawes and Patygarang reach out to each other as they exchange linguistic and emotional tokens. This was a time when such an exchange was still possible between the colonisers and the indigenous people.'
Source: ABC Radio's Airplay website, http://www.abc.net.au/rn/airplay/
Sighted: 02/02/2009
