Final Round
Final Round, a 60 min one-act play, directed by Martin Christmas, was produced at
the 2010 Adelaide Fringe Festival, starring Michael Baldwin, Cassandra Kane and Nathan Porteus.
This play began several years ago when I spent a week in hospital with a Deep Vein Thrombosis. “Look on the bright side,” everybody said. “It’ll give you material for a new play.”
When the character in the next bed learned of my condition, he comforted my wife with: “That’s what I’ve got, only worse. They may have to take my leg off.” Another member of the ward had a carotid artery that was 50% blocked. He was given aspirin, sent home and told to come back when it was 75% blocked. The fourth patient, who kept everybody awake at night with a hacking cough that we all thought was chronic bronchitis, was found to have inhaled a pea, which was now lodged deep in his lung.
A hospital ward is a place where people, who would normally power-walk the Nullabor to avoid each other, are thrown together. Scars are opened, muscles flexed, secrets unlocked; all this in an environment where tragedy and death are never far away.
Final Round is a moving look at two men who discover that, despite their superficial differences and the complexities of male social culture in Australia, they have more in common than they would like to admit.
To read the Director's comments, and download reviews of the play
Click here
This play is one of the four scripts contained in the Anthology. To discuss
performance issues, please email me