The Shoehorn Sonata by John Misto
Tours Nunawading, Shepparton, Warragul, Ballarat, Werribee, Warnambool, Geelong, Wangaratta, Kyneton, Sale until May , 2007
Reviewer: Kate Herbert on April 4, 2007
John Misto’s play, The Shoehorn Sonata, directed by Jennifer Hagan, takes the long-ignored story of sixty-five Australian Army nurses who were Japanese prisoners-of-war, and replays it through the eyes of two survivors fifty years after they were released from a camp in the jungles of Malaya.
When they met in 1942, Bridie Cartwright (Maggie Kirkpatrick) was a working class, Sydney, Irish Catholic Army nurse with prudish morals and a larrikin humour. Sheila Richards (Belinda Giblin) was a snobbish English fifteen-year old who was living in Singapore with her mother until she was evacuated by ship.
The two young women, after the Japanese attacked their ship and others in February 1942, clung to each other in the South China Sea, surviving on luck and their will to live until the Japanese captured them.
Misto sets the play in 1995 when the two women are old and have not seen each other since leaving the Singapore hospital in 1945 after their rescue. They are in Sydney to participate in a television interview show. But they not only confront the questions of their unseen interviewer (Richard Morecroft) but their shattered friendship faces intense scrutiny when they retire to their shared hotel room.
Their retelling of their horrific experiences at the hands of the ruthless Japanese demonstrates that their memories are vivid and visceral even after fifty years. Their lives were permanently shattered by the abuse and starvation they suffered.
Bridie and Sheila recall the experiences that enabled them to survive especially the camp choir that sustained them until the last weeks of the war until their numbers were depleted and the survivors were too weak to sing.
As they battle to find common ground after so much time, each reveals a secret. Sheila’s is a shock to the pious Bridie who believed for fifty years that Sheila traded Bridie’s precious shoehorn for quinine to save Bridie’s life. The truth reveals a far greater sacrifice by Sheila to save her friend, and a far greater shame to bear.
Kirkpatrick and Giblin are a vibrant and skilful partnership. Kirkpatrick revels in the broad, cheeky, lovable playfulness of Bridie while Giblin gives the toffee-nosed Sheila dignity, warmth and depth.
Misto’s script is conventional and unchallenging in form and structure but the stories of the women give it an engaging and compelling narrative.
By Kate Herbert
No comments:
Post a Comment