Dead Men’s Wars by Ralph McCubbin Howell.
Directed by Brett Adams. Street One. The
Street Theatre. Canberra Youth Theatre Company (AUS) and Long Cloud Youth
Theatre(NZ). Until October 25.
Reviewed by Peter Wilkins
The right and responsibility of every youth
theatre is to give voice to young people through theatre and for them to own the
work that they have created. Dead Men’s Wars is a collaborative project
between Canberra Youth Theatre and New Zealand’s Long Cloud Youth Theatre. Six
actors from both companies assume the principal roles of three youth
ambassadors on a trip to Anzac Cove, their two chaperones, Darren (Andrew
Eddie) and Helen (Lydia Buckley-Gorman) Liam Kelly plays Owen, a friend of
Lori’s who is also in Turkey at the time. A chorus of performers provides the
kaleidoscope of characters that populate the stage as soldiers, museum
exhibits, protestors and phantoms, the abstract expression of war and attitude.
Lori is joined by Charlie, who is documenting the trip and Kip, whose brother
is serving in Afghanistan. Ralph McCubbin Howell’s tightly constructed script
presents a discourse, sparking conflict, eliciting diverse and often opposing
attitudes towards the Anzac myth and the celebration of the legendary occasion.
This is a play of ideas and opinion, staged with theatrical flair and performed
with unswerving conviction and energy and flair by the tightly directed
ensemble.
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| Richard Cotta and Liam Kelly in Dead Men's Wars Photo by Liam Kelly |
The play opens with a scene played by two
soldiers, caught by gunfire and nerve gas in the trenches. It is here amongst
the mud and stench of gas and death that one fearlessly resolves to help his
injured mate. “Mates don’t leave their mates” and with this adamant retort the
legend of Australian mateship is born. The scene of suffering in the horror of
war segues to the present day scene between Lori and Darren. Lori has distributed
her comments, criticizing the Anzac myth online, much to Darren’s disgust and
fear of reprisal rom the tour’s sponsors.
At first I think that I am revisiting the
words of Alf and his son Hughie from Alan Seymour’s classic play about Anzac
day, The One Day Of The Year, written
half a century ago. Lori’s online posting of the speech evokes the same
reaponse of disgust and horror at ingratitude and insult that appalled Alf when
he leant of Hughie’s article in the university paper. It would be easy to
accuse Hoell’s dialogue of cliché, however carefully this may be tempered by
Helen’s more modrate approach. The situation is exacerbated further by the
secret podcast recordings of all conversations that Charlie (Nathalie Morris)
is preparing. Kip’s account of his brother’s experiences at the frontline also
echoe the few words of the old veteran Wacka in The One Day of the Year. I make these comparisons, not to
confirm the cliché as a person who remembers when Seymou’s play first
tunnedAustralian audiences for its apparent attack on the behaviour of certain
returned soldiers on Anzac Day, but to highlight the power of thisproduction to
allow a voice for a new generation, who now experience daily the images of
atrocities in the war torn Middle East
in the comfort of their own loungerooms. No such images of actual wars,
happened there and now invaded the loungerooms of the fifties. One person’s
cliché is another person’s new discovery.
I gradually cast aside my first impression as
Brett Adams’s excellent direction does justice to Howell’s intent to present
many different sides of the argument. The play is essentially a debate. We are
compelled to question istory. Whose war is it? What is left unknown, unsaid?
What information determines or attiutudes? Darren represents the conservative,
traditional view. Helen speaks with a more moderate voice. Owen plays the
antagonist. Kip struggles with his appreciation of reality and Charlie remains
he detached observer. Supported by the varying images and characters of the
Ensemble, all voices have expression in the individual opinion, and the power
of this drama evolves with intriguing argument.
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| Bella Guererra and Ensemble in Dead men's Wars Photos by Lorna Sim |
What appeared simplistic became a network of
complex questions. We see the spark that Lori has ignited and its consequence,
both personal in the threat of return to New Zealand and the reactions of
tweeters across the globe as well as universal in the omnipotent power of
the sponsors and the power of the
majority to stifle the voice of the lone protestor. It is only when the
Ensemble, the vociferous majority oppose the might of the unjust that we see
the true poer of the people in the face of oppression.
The reality remains. Gallipoli was a military
failure and a national success. This evocatively staged production, powerfully
staged on Christiane Nowak’s expressionistic timber scaffold set and enhanced
by Niklas Pajanti’s lighting design and Coleman Grehan’s sound design. may to
some appear a familiar and well-worn theme. To others, and I suspect to the
members of Canberra Youth Theatre and Long Cloud Youth Theatre it offers
revelation through their research, rehearsal and performance of a superbly
executed piece of theatre. For my part, I did feel that the company did protest
too much. This is an excellent example of youth theatre, dedicated to its
passion and its argument, staged with regard for the power of the ensemble,
highly disciplined and imbued with clarity of action and intent. I would have
preferred more tightly edited contemporary scenes with more flashbacks to
actual examples of the suffering, protestation and power struggles of the
period. In this production they find effective expression in the scene between
the two soldiers and the scene with the nurses. However, that is a personal
opinion. Collaborative projects can tend to eke out ideas and situations.
Greater economy of dramatic moments would have had a more powerful effect.
Canberra Youth Theatre and Long Cloud are to
be congratulated on achieving such a theatrically absorbing performance that
again invites us to question human motive, behavior and consequence. Dead men’s
Wars speaks to us all with a voice that still resonates as much if not more in
our own time. After all, all wars are a legacy for the generations that follow.
This production urges us to contemplate still our very human nature.