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Some years ago now I wrote a play about John Curtin with a friend of mine George Blazevic
about the first, the initial meeting between John Curtin and Douglas McArthur at the beginning
of the Second World War.
In the process of writing that play I discovered an enormous amount as you can imagine about
Curtin and became fascinated with him. And I discovered this particular period which
happened between 1932 and 1934 in which Curtin lost his seat in Fremantle. He returned to
Perth, to Western Australia, a broken man it seemed. He's a man who at the point that
we meet him believes that his political life is over. I suppose therefore what it is I'm
interested in is what quality it is about a man that is able to take a second look at
himself and his life and take a deep breath and keep going.
The action of the play is all the events that take place and the characters who collide
with whom Curtin has to struggle and/or negotiate and/or ally himself in order to push through
his own obstacles whether they are his own fears or disappointment in order to essentially
win the seat of Fremantle back again.
The play is principally set from 1932 to 1934. It is right slap *** in the depths of the
Great Depression, the depths of which we are inclined to forget.
There is so much material available, I mean there is the John Curtin Prime Ministerial
Library which contains quite a substantial amount of stuff and the trick was to cherry
pick the relevant parts and then to turn that into a dramatic structure. And a good story.
It was certainly a surprise to me to discover that Curtin fell in love with a young woman
in the early part of the century when he first joined the Socialist Party. Not a lot had
been known about this until quite recently. This young woman died very young and its effect
on John Curtin was profound. And it has its profound consequences in the play but more
than that I'd rather leave to when you find out when you come and see it.