In a small Victorian town better known for its gold rush past than cultural shifts, something quietly significant is unfolding on stage.
For the first time, Castlemaine Theatre Company is producing a work by an Indian writer and working with Indian actors. That shift alone gives Camp Darwin a certain weight. But what makes it compelling is not just who is telling the story, but the story itself.
At its heart, Camp Darwin is deeply Indian in its emotional landscape—even though its six characters are all Australian. Each of them carries a connection to India. They have travelled there, worked there, loved being there, and in some ways, long for it. India, in this play, is not just a place. It is memory, pull, confusion—home, and not quite home.
“It’s not just the ‘Indian’ characters,” says writer Arjun Raina. “All of them are linked to India. One of the Anglo-Saxon characters even says, ‘I just want to go back to India.’”
That shared thread becomes the invisible glue in a story that unfolds inside a quarantine camp.
Inspired by Raina’s own time at the Howard Springs quarantine facility during COVID, Camp Darwin places six men of Indian, Anglo-Saxon and Chinese heritage into a confined space where there is nowhere to go but inward. They arrive as strangers. They carry anxieties—about illness, about home, about what comes next. There is suspicion, awkwardness, silence.
And then, slowly, something begins to shift.
“I didn’t take notes. I just lived it,” says Raina. A playwright, performer, and former Annie from the 1980s cult classic In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones (yes, that Arundhati Roy one), he brings a rare mix to the stage: Kathakali training, a PhD from Flinders, and the good sense to trust his gut.
“But what stayed with me was the intimacy. In that space, you don’t have the usual barriers. You’re just… people together.”
That intimacy is what drives the play.
Director Kate Stones describes it as “a whole universe in itself”, a work that moves between humour and tension, stillness and movement. “There are moments where nothing happens,” she says. “The men just sit, eat, wait. And that waiting becomes the story.”
It’s an unusual rhythm for theatre, but a deliberate one.
“It’s like a long flight,” she explains. “When you’re stuck for hours, even something small becomes meaningful. A meal, a conversation. We wanted the audience to feel that stretch of time.”
The play doesn’t rush connection. Trust is earned, slowly.
For Dalip, played by Hem Tiwary, the journey is internal. “As a first-generation migrant, you’re always questioning – who am I, why am I here, do I go back? Dalip carries all of that quietly.”
For Raminder, played by Martin Thomas, the journey is more outward. “He’s the one who brings people together,” says Thomas. “When someone is struggling, he steps in.”
Raminder’s own story is marked by trauma—stranded during COVID, falling ill, desperate to return home. That lived experience becomes his strength.
At a crucial moment in the play, he breaks quarantine rules to comfort another man who is falling apart. It is a small act, but a powerful one.
“When one person shows empathy, others respond,” Raina says. “That’s where connection begins.”
Raina’s writing carries the confidence of experience—he has written nine plays staged across India, Australia, Europe, the U.K., China, Russia, Japan and the USA, and trained generations of actors at the National School of Drama in New Delhi, alongside teaching at institutions including Yale, Stanford and MIT. But here, the storytelling stays disarmingly simple.
Even humour finds its place.
“When hierarchy disappears, when six men are just… men together, it becomes funny. It’s a response to fear,” he says.
And fear is never far away. The looming threat of the “red zone” – extended isolation for anyone who shows symptoms – hangs over the characters. It was a fear Raina himself experienced.
“That idea terrified me,” he says. “That you could be stuck indefinitely. That became the dramatic tension.”
But beyond the pandemic, Camp Darwin asks a more enduring question: where is home? For these men, the answer is not simple. It is Australia. It is India. It is somewhere in between.
“Home becomes the connections they make,” says Stones. “Especially in a place where everything else feels uncertain.”
That idea resonates beyond the stage. In a regional town like Castlemaine, where Indian presence is often limited to everyday roles such as in restaurants, at servos, this production shifts the lens.
“It’s about seeing Indian artists on stage,” Stones says. “Engaging with a different cultural voice. That matters.”
And perhaps that is what makes Camp Darwin quietly powerful. It simply places six men in a room, strips away the noise of the outside world, and watches what happens when they are left with each other – and themselves.
And in that theatre in Castlemaine, you’ll see who gets to tell those stories – and who finally gets to be seen.
Come watch.
Camp Darwin will be performed at 35 Etty Street, Castlemaine.
Dates: 15–31 May 2026 (Fridays and Saturdays at 7.30pm; Sundays at 2pm).
For tickets, click here
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