Precious Cargo is a new theatre show marking the 50th anniversary of Operation Babylift, in which thousands of young children were airlifted out of the Vietnam war and adopted by families across the world. Precious Cargo will have its first performance at An Lanntair on Saturday 6 July 2024, followed by a three week run at the Edinburgh Fringe.
Writer-performer Barton Williams and composer Andy Yearley were both Vietnam war adoptees, growing up on opposite sides of the world in south Australia and the Outer Hebrides in Scotland, but with strikingly similar life experiences. Both were raised in small, overwhelmingly white communities, knowing almost nothing about their biological families.
Precious Cargo draws on both of their life experiences plus interviews with four other adoptee children who grew up in the USA and the UK. They are stories about the chaos and horror of war, of good intentions, racism and colonialism, and of a generation of children, now well into middle age, still searching for lost relatives and running out of time to do it.
The truth is that many Vietnam ‘orphans’ were not orphans at all but children separated from their families; that children born into wars are often affected for their entire lives, and that finding the answers you’re looking for can often bring its own pain.
Precious Cargo is produced by sruth-mara and directed by Fringe First winner Laura Cameron-Lewis. Barton had previously been developing Precious Cargo as a solo project. The collaboration with sruth-mara and Andy (pictured below recording the score at Wee Studio) began after he visited the Isle of Lewis for the first time in autumn 2021.
Performed by Barton Williams
Music by Andy Yearley
Directed by Laura Cameron-Lewis
Produced by Andrew Eaton-Lewis
Visual & sound design by Robbie Thomson
A sruth-mara production in association with An Lanntair, supported by Creative Scotland and Mark Barbeliuk.
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