Adelaide Fringe. Migration Museum. 2 Mar 2014.
It's not light entertainment, this little production from Brisbane. It is very serious and sad. It is profoundly well-intended and well-researched.
It is about post-traumatic stress disorder and the way in which it was perceived in the past. The play is set in Egypt and centres around a soldier with shell-shock and the nurse taking care of him during World War One. Private Dylan Moxley can't get past the horror of the gruesome death of his close mate in explosive combat. Small triggers set off nightmare visions and flashbacks.
Nurse Nellie Morrice patiently tends to him and tries to keep him connected to the here and now. She is not optimistic about his prognosis but keeps up the professional front. From time to time he has dream visitations from his young wife in Australia. It is Christmas, his second away from his wife. There are letters, the most precious treasures. And a lock of her hair.
But he is very damaged. There are moments when it seems he is finding a functional norm but it only takes the chance for his mind to wander and he is back in the horrors. There are no real treatments for him, just recognition of the condition. He pulls himself out of the shuddering nightmares by sticking his head into a bucket of cold water.
The play, written by Craig Wood and James Trigg, is only an hour long, but it feels longer. It is torturous. It keeps inflicting poor Dylan's world upon one and it becomes one's own hopeless world.
It is made interesting and endurable only because of the high quality of the acting. Peter Norton and Sasha Dyer are skilled and focused performers and, in the quaint little space at the Migration Museum, performing in the round with just a chair, white sheets on a camp bed and a few tin buckets, they hold the mood and tension of the work and draw the audience into their world.
It noted that this play, directed by John Boyce, also pays tribute to the sacrifice and expertise of the nurses who served through World War One. The Red Cross was created after the outbreak of that war and this year celebrates its centenary. In acknowledgment, the production company, which has the very odd name of ‘One of a Pair and 3d Room Theatrical’, is giving a dollar from every ticket sale to the Red Cross.
Samela Harris
When: 3 to 8 Mar
Where: Migration Museum
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
