ABOUT DUSTED OFF
Dusted Off is as much about Vietnam as it is about family. It is as much a story of one man and one family, as it is the story of all our young men and women who fight everywhere and return home to navigate civilian lives.
Brett Hunt brings to the stage the story of his family and his father Frank Hunt − the Frankie who ‘kicked the mine the day mankind kicked the moon’.
Just as in John Schuman’s song ‘I was Only 19’, Frank Hunt in Dusted Off is an everyman. Through music and monologue, Brett explores a family’s survival and redemption through intergenerational trauma and post-traumatic stress.
It is not a case for war, nor a glorification, nor a regret. It is a universal exploration of a young veteran’s motivations, injuries and efforts to keep a family together through indescribably tough circumstances. It is a tale of generations of veterans, and a legacy of that time in history, post World War II, when the Cold War, the rivalry between communism and capitalism, was at its peak.
Through the story of one man and his family, Dusted Off captures the history of that time, of conscription, protest, social change, the experience of Australian soldiers, and Australia's relationship with the United States.