Rations pulls at the threads of hand-me-downs. Lured from their homelands, clothed in cast offs and fed an alien diet of flour and sugar, the people find themselves trapped in a cycle of dependency.

"The whole ration system had an addictive quality, the addiction suffocated everyone and kept them there as well. And the diet, it was a big difference in what they were used to eating -the heaviness and the weighing down, the addictiveness of sugar. But also the flour was poisoned with strychnine and arsenic, the blankets were laced with smallpox. There was that other sinister level which always exists in Australian history." - Frances Rings

This production features the First Nations language Walmajarri (a Ngumpin language from the Kimberly region).

Sections of Rations

Mourning
Flour (Father Abraham and Domestics)
Ceremony
Blankets
Tobacco (Ash and Smoko)
Humpy

Duration: 35 minutes

Rations premiered in 2002 as part of the double bill Walkabout, which included Rations and Rush.

Rations toured in 2006 as part of the double bill Clan, which included Rations and Unaipon.