Three high school stu­dents from Aus­tralia and New Zea­l­and have won a com­pet­i­tion to vis­it Gal­lipoli for the ANZAC day com­mem­or­a­tions. They are escor­ted over by two com­pany rep­res­ent­at­ives. Everything is going accord­ing to the sched­ule when one of the stu­dents goes off script. The fal­lout affects them all.

This is the 2015 STAB pro­duc­tion and is a col­lab­or­a­tion between Can­berra Youth Theatre and Long Cloud Youth Theatre. Accord­ing to the Writer’s Note in the pro­gramme it explores the “way the [ANZAC] story [of mate­ship] sits with us today” and the con­tent was “driv­en by the artists of CYT and Long Cloud Youth Theatre.” It’s an inter­est­ing way to look at the myth­o­lo­gising of ANZAC; the ques­tions from a generation/s who have little dir­ect con­nec­tion to the ori­gin­al ANZACs.

The script some­times verges on the edge of lec­tur­ing but mostly allows the act­ors to explore the ques­tions. Bella Guar­rera as Lori, the stu­dent who goes off script, is the centre of this story.  I liked both her sulky teen­ager and her wide-eyed tour­ist. Lydia Buckley-Forman plays Helen, one of the chap­er­ones. She and Andrew Eddey (Darryn, the oth­er chap­er­one) work togeth­er well as they tussle for lead­er­ship and con­trol over the tour. Nath­alie Mor­ris (Charlie) and Richard Cotta (Kip) are the oth­er two stu­dents. Both give a good sense of their char­ac­ters – Mor­ris a quietly determ­ined pod­caster, and Cotta a hearty type from a mil­it­ary fam­ily. Liam Kelly is Owen, a slightly mys­ter­i­ous and pro­voc­at­ive indi­vidu­al who knows Lori. Kelly and Cotta also play two sol­diers. Their open­ing scene nicely con­trasts with the scenes in which Budkley-Gor­man and Mor­ris play nurses. The indi­vidu­al per­formers are sup­por­ted by an ensemble. Bella Aus­tin, Alex Tunui, Kee­gan Bragg, Liam Whit­ney, Kirsten Jongsma are well rehearsed. It’s a genu­ine pleas­ure to watch them whirl about the stage or deliv­er lines.

There were a few tech­nic­al issues the night I saw it, but I’m sure the com­pany will have settled into BATS by now.

  • Dead Men’s Wars by Ral­ph McCub­bin How­ell, dir­ec­ted by Brett Adam, at BATS Theatre to 31 Octo­ber 2015