THE BAGGAGE HANDLER

$5.40 – $15.00

2005. John Howard is Prime Minister. Cronulla Race Riots. Counter-terrorism raids in Sydney and Melbourne. Schapelle Corby goes to jail…

This play is inspired by a bizarre incident that same year when a man waiting to board a domestic flight at Sydney airport looked out the window and saw a baggage handler driving across the tarmac wearing the camel suit he’d packed in his suitcase…

But it isn’t really about that. It’s about our pre-occupation with identity, our desire for acceptance, the way we kid ourselves, the way we always have something to prove. It’s ignorance versus decency, abuse of trust, hostility towards difference. It’s the lies we are told and the lies we tell, the old “I don’t recall” catchphrase. It’s pithy, it’s blithe, it’s Australia.

APT