UMBER productions

a new play by Elaine Acworth

water wars is a comic exploration of what happens over our backyard fences as the days get hotter and the drought gets longer, then gets renamed as a dry. 

The play is set in the Brisbane of the near future, a Brisbane dealing with permanent scarcity, a city where the water will be turned off for hours every day.

Gally and her family inherit her grandmother’s house in an inner city suburb and move in looking to simplify their complicated and over-committed lives. The garden here is parched and dry, and it is hard to keep even the trees alive.  

Next door, though, is a shocking vista of floral abundance.  This is the home of Mrs P, an old friend of Gally’s gran, a woman who tells endless stories of her never-seen husband, John.  In the middle of tough restrictions, when water costs as much as petrol, Mrs P blithely hoses away - where is all this water coming from? How does she afford it?

Up the hill is Berenice, wife of a wealthy developer, Queen Bee of the High Tea, cosseted yet unsatisfied with her lot.  Berenice’s architect told her she had the “biggest void in Brisbane”; Berenice plans to have more than that.

Thrown into this mix is an eight year old boy, Gally’s son, Callum.  Recovering from a car accident and obsessed with tree-houses, Cal is the spark that ignites warfare between the backyards.

This is the world of water wars, where ‘lifestyle’ can get bloody.

The development of Water Wars has been proudly supported by Creative Sparks - a joint initiative of Brisbane City Council and the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland.