Loyalty, Friendship, and Tradition Theme Analysis

The layoff season is a longstanding tradition for Roo, Barney, Olive, and Nancy, and it is the guiding event around which they organize their year. As such, the characters prize loyalty to their tradition highly—even at the expense of loyalty to and empathy for one another. When the seventeenth layoff season doesn't unfold as planned, the play begins to question the wisdom of relying so heavily on upholding a tradition, since true friendships begin to crumble under the weight of loyalty to a ritual that has clearly run its course.

Within the greater tradition of observing the layoff season, the four friends observe a number of smaller traditions and rituals. They take the same boat tour every year, attend the same holiday parties with the same people, and spend Christmas at a house in Selby. These traditions are so much a part of the layoff season that the participants stop questioning whether or not to do them. However, despite the mindlessness with which they observe their traditions, they're fiercely loyal to the traditions at the expense of people about whom they presumably care. For example, when Olive learns that Roo walked out on his job in the cane fields and must get a job in the city, she fails to empathize with the difficulty of that decision and instead becomes enraged by his betrayal of their tradition. Similarly, Olive considers Nancy's decision to marry a betrayal. By characterizing these decisions this way, Olive shows that she values loyalty to a tradition over anything else, even when Roo and Nancy's "unconventional" choices are construed as being made out of necessity (in the case of Roo's job) or out of free will and a desire for a change (as with Nancy's marriage).

The relationship most threatened by the layoff season's changes is that between Barney and Roo. Like the construction of their masculinity, the depiction of their friendship is classically Australian: it's an example of "mateship," an Australian literary tradition that focuses on exploring platonic male friendship that develops based on shared experience, often in Australia's harsh bush climate. By both working together and playing together during the layoff season, Barney and Roo continually affirm their affection and loyalty for each other. Though their friendship likely started in the cane fields, the fact that their friendship continues into the layoff season every year shows that this kind of platonic male loyalty can survive changes of scenery and routine. However, the potential durability of their friendship is compromised by their conflation of loyalty to one another to the tradition of the layoff season, which—unlike their friendship—is untenable. When Barney chooses to stay in the cane fields after Roo walks away from his position as gang leader, Roo sees this as an act of betrayal, not a choice Barney made out of financial necessity (which Barney claims it is). For both Roo and Barney, the entire spirit of the layoff season is compromised primarily because their loyalty to each other suddenly seems tenuous and untrustworthy.

The characters' conflicts over loyalty to tradition versus loyalty to one another reach a fever pitch near the end of the play. Barney and Roo consciously try to shift their loyalty away from each other: Barney decides to leave early with Johnnie, while Roo decides to remain in the city and marry Olive. However, when Olive refuses Roo's offer, she refuses to shift her loyalty from the layoff season to Roo—though in doing so, the layoff season comes to a premature, grinding halt, so her misplaced loyalty was worthless. Though the season ends, this brings about a reaffirmation of Barney and Roo's loyalty to each other. Their rekindled friendship suggests once again that relying on tradition is foolish, as traditions are guaranteed to change. When Barney and Roo leave together, the play demonstrates that the loyalty they share is stronger and more resilient than any tradition.