Willie
Willie is the main character in the play, an aboriginal boy of approximately 16 years old. He lives together his mother who dreams of her son becoming a priest even though he does not want this. Willie runs away from the boarding school his mother sent him to because he did not want to be physically punished and insulted because of his aboriginal past. On the road back home, Willie discovers his identity and what he wants from life. Thus, when he reaches his hometown, he is ready to tell his mother he does not want to be a priest but life a happy life in their small community together with Rosie, the girl he loved.
Rosie
Rosie is an aboriginal girl who lives in Broome. She and Willie get along well but Willie is afraid to confess and thus Rosie is under the impression that Willie does not like her. When Willie returns home and confesses she claims she lives him too and the impression left is that the two started a relationship.
Uncle Tadpole
Tadpole is a man whom Willie meets after running away from the boarding school. Tadpole is a drunk and does not shy away from taking Willie’s money and buying alcohol. Tadpole is presented as a manipulative person and a drunk. Everything he does is so he could have more money and he also talks freely about the sexual partners he had. Despite this, he takes care of Willie and takes him home. There, he finds that Willie is his son and it is possible that Tadpole remained in Broome for Willie. The end of the play also reveals that Tadpole left his wife 15 years ago because she cheated on him.
Father Benedictus
Father Benedictus is presented in the play as being a negative character because of his hypocrisy. Father Benedictus runs a boarding school where he keeps a tight grip on the students. He physically punishes them and he also has racist views about aboriginals. However, when Willie runs away, Benedictus goes on his track in an attempt to bring him back. At the end of the play it is also revealed that he is not as wholly since he had relationships with Willie’s mother which resulted in a pregnancy.
Annie
Annie is the woman who is in the same car as Slippery. She is an Australian woman who is a hippie and who is obsessed with the idea of experiencing the real aboriginal lifestyle. At the end, she confesses that she had a child when she was 16, a child she gave up.
Slippery
Slippery or Wolfgang Benedictus is Theresa and Father Benedictus’s son. He was sent to Germany by his father but he returned to the country searching for him. He is presented as a paranoid man who eventually turns to be a loving son, happy to meet his mother for the first time.
Leslie
Leslie is a bandleader that appears in the beginning and the end of the play. He is presented as a macho man, someone who quickly gets everything he wants. His confidence affected even Rosie who felt attracted to him.
Theresa
Theresa is Willie’s mother. She is a single parent and she does everything she can to provide to her son even though she has to work really hard. She wants her son to be a priest and so she sends him to Perth to get an education. It is implied that she was unfaithful to her husband and because of this she was abandoned. Her husband was Tadpole and she also had a child with Father Benedictus.
The woman at the gas station
The woman is described as being middle aged but extremely sexual because of her large breasts. She tries to convince Willie to have sex with her but she then realizes that Tadpole and Willie are robbing her.
Roxanne
Roxanne is a woman Willie meets after the football team drops him off. He almost has his first sexual experience with her under the Condom Tree. After they are discovered by Roxanne’s boyfriend, she hides in Slippery’s van and ends up in Broome.
Rosie's friends
The two girls appear in the beginning of the play when Rosie is at the movies with them. The two girls seat near Rosie while Willie’s friends make sexual remarks from the other side of the room.
Willie's friends
Willie’s friends also appear in the beginning of the play at the movies. They make sexual remarks towards Rosie and her friends.
The boys at the boarding school
The boys at the boarding school remain unnamed but it is clear they are close to Willie. The band together to steal food and try to convince one another that what they are doing is nothing to be ashamed of.
Timmy
Timmy is a small boy from the boarding school asked to stay in front of the class to be punished the day after it was discovered that some students stole food.
The homeless men
The homeless men appear twice in the play, once together with Tadpole and next when they are questioned by Father Benedictus. In both cases, they are willing to give up any information they have for anything the speaker is ready to offer them.
