July 24/25 | 11am & 7pm July 26 | 2pm & 7pm
July 31 | 11am & 7pm Aug 1 | 11am & 7pm
Aug 2 | 2pm & 7pm Aug 3 | 5pm
WRITER
Jenny Davis OAM
DIRECTOR
Stuart Halusz
CAST
Caitlin Beresford-Ord; Rebecca Davis; Michelle Fornasier
Alex Jones; Helen Searle; Alison van Reeken
Rebecca Davis plays Vivian Bullwinkel
Reviewed by Frank McKone
July 24
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| L-R: Caitlin Beresford-Ord, Alison van Reeken, Rebecca Davis, Alex Jones, Michelle Fornasier, Helen Searle |
21 Hearts
is a living breathing documentary with an extraordinary emotional
effect, only achievable by live performances, supported by projected
historical material. If you ever wondered if some War Museums may do
more than only commemorate wars, by seeming to encourage a fascination
with wars past, you will not doubt the Australian War Memorial’s
purpose in presenting this play in its new theatre.
Many times
during her service from 1942 to 1945, when she alone had survived the
enemy’s treatment of her and her nursing colleagues, Vivian exclaimed,
out of a deep sense of guilt, “I should not be here. I should have died
with the others on the beach.”
But always a personal chance of
caring for, of supporting, or saving someone else’s life would revive
her determination to not give up. These were the moments which hit home
to the heart, especially for me, but I’m sure for everyone in the
audience, many of whom were nurses who have faced difficult conflicting
circumstances as they often do, even outside the fog of war.
The
quality of this production – the acting, singing and movement, the
costuming, and the technical audio-visual presentation – is absolutely
top-class. With mood swings from humour in the face of the threat of
death, to the horror not only of direct hits but also of their captors’
terrible treatment of them – despite their rights as international Red
Cross nurses – directing this play requires a tight discipline to make
the drama true to reality, which Stuart Halusz has clearly achieved.
It’s
that very discipline that is the creed for nurses everywhere, as it is
for these actors in creating these nurses’ stories. Their teamwork
lifts the drama off the stage so we feel as they and their characters
feel.
Each of us will have our personal response to this
experience. The play does not make Vivian into the conventional idea of
‘hero’. Known as ‘Bully’ by all, we come to know her as an ordinary
person, like ourselves, getting on with what needs to be done, if that’s
possible, and working to help others no matter the circumstances with
what I would call practical empathy.
The reason I felt so
emotionally affected goes back to my birth. In January 1941 (in UK) I
was named Frank after my mother’s favourite brother had been called up,
posted to France and had disappeared – only to reappear when I was 5
years old, having walked across Europe from Poland, where he had been
made to work in forestry for the Germans. Like Vivian and those nurses
on Sumatra had to provide their Japanese captors with their nursing
services.
Like so many, my uncle never told details of his story, and how he survived.
Seeing 21 Hearts
has made me realise and understand anew why my father had taken the
stand as a conscientious objector to being conscripted as my uncle had
been; and it has reinforced my own determination, when I turned 18 in
Australia, to take the same stand as my father against National Service,
which was still compulsory in 1959.
Neither of us were sent to
jail for opposing war. The wartime court decided to classify my father’s
trade, plasterer, as a ‘reserved occupation’ so he worked on repairing
war damaged houses in London for the war years. In Sydney, a
magistrate rejected my claim, but on appeal to a higher court, a judge
ordered I must be put in a medical corps where I would be “saving lives,
not taking lives”. I was allowed to defer going until I finished
university – and by then National Service had been abandoned; weirdly
not long before the 18th Birthday lottery began sending young men to the
Vietnam War.
And still, at 84, I sometimes feel that guilt, when
I think of those who did not come back from Vietnam, or continue to
suffer the mental anguish caused by their experiences there.
Certainly go to see 21 Hearts – Vivian Bullwinkel & the Nurses of the Vyner Brooke,
but be prepared for its highly personal impact on your thoughts and
feelings about what in earlier times used to be called Glorious War.
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| Rebecca Davis as Vivian Bullwinkel in 21 Hearts Jenny Davis OAM |
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