An ecological adaptation of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night set in contemporary Townsville, Queensland. The characters and storyline of Salt Water Fresh are based on Shakespeare’s romantic comedy Twelfth Night, but this adaptation mixes language from this play with passages in other Shakespeare plays, historical material, contemporary Australian poetry, and original passages that highlight contemporary environmental issues in the region, particularly as the characters face a cyclone and attendant flooding. The play foregrounds the ‘watery’ quality of Twelfth Night-its interest in shipwrecks, drowning, tears, and waves. Shakespeare’s play is a story of mourning and revenge, but also of forgiveness and regeneration. Salt Waves Fresh is an exploration of these competing issues within the framework of anthropogenic environmental crises. Listening to the more-than-human world is the first step in understanding how to move toward solutions to the damage we have caused.
