Debrief, Nov 6 1999

by Angus Cerini and James Cerini, by Noodle Theatre

 at Theatreworks until November 20, 1999

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

"Peace-keeping" sounds like a comfortable, peaceable way to be a soldier - a picnic compared with active duty. Well Debrief, a play about Australian Humanitarian aid providers in Rwanda in 1994, tells a different story.

James Cerini, a veteran of this mission, wrote this award-winning play with his brother, Angus Cerini. It is an episodic, gritty and emotional investigation of the young men and women who nobly and perhaps naively, went to Rwanda, The characters are based on James' and other soldiers' experience in Africa and their subsequent suffering of the physical and emotional consequences.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) used to be called "shell shock" or "battle fatigue". Whatever we call it, it is the permanently damaging effect of seeing such horrors as decapitations, machete wounds, lost limbs, starvation and orphaned children.

It must be worsened when, as humanitarians aid workers, they cannot lift a weapon to save the lives of those being slaughtered before their eyes. If they do, they risk being tried for murder. It is an horrific notion.

Have we learned nothing about caring for the members of our defence forces? We know that veterans of both World Wars and Vietnam have suffered terribly. We are now sending more troops to East Timor.

The Cerini brothers have written a well-crafted and moving play that does not prey on the emotions with long, emotive scenes. Instead, it uses a stylised structure and fragmented dialogue that juxtapose Rwanda with the post-war experience. Characters' worlds and voices collide and syncopate.

Slides and film appear and dissolve on one of two enormous fabric hospital screens designed by design. Angela Pamic. The empty space allows director, Ben Ellis, to fill the stage with characters and voices and to shift scenes seamlessly.

The ensemble of ten is compelling. As the men whose lives turn to chaos after Rwanda, Jim Shaw, Scott Gooding, Simon Kearney and Matt Norman find truth in their journey from boyish bravado to despair. Kim Denman is powerful as the only woman on the tour of duty. Kurt Geyer provides numerous comic and dramatic characters with aplomb.

This is a play that we should all see. It has the endorsement of the Surgeon General of the Australian Defence Forces and the National Centre of War related PTSD. War and peace are facts of our world. We need to fully understand their impact.

by Kate Herbert