Structure and characterisation

The structure of the play

The Shoe-Horn Sonata is divided into two acts: the longer Act One, with eight scenes,
and a shorter Act Two, with six scenes.

It follows theatrical custom by providing a major climax before the final curtain of
Act One, which resolves some of the suspense and mystery, but leaves the audience to
wonder what direction the play will take after the interval. The action cuts between
two settings: a television studio and a Melbourne motel room.

The opening scene, with Bridie demonstrating the deep, subservient bow, the kow-
tow, demanded of the prisoners by their Japanese guards during tenko, takes the
audience straight into the action. As the interviewer, Rick, poses questions, music and
images from the war period flash on the screen behind Bridie, and the audience
realises they are watching the filming of a television documentary. The time is now,
and Bridie is being asked to recall the events of fifty years earlier.

This scene establishes who Bridie is, and introduces the audience to the situation: the
recall and in a sense the re-living of memories of the years of imprisonment. This and
the following scene carry out the function of exposition.

The extreme danger the prisoners faced is indicated by Bridie during this exposition:
over-crowded ships sailing towards an enemy fleet, the unpreparedness of the British
garrison in Singapore for the invasion, the fear of rape for the women. Misto thus sets
up some of the issues to be confronted during the course of the play between the
Australian Bridie and the former English schoolgirl Sheila. Sheila appears in Scene
Two, and the major conflict of the play begins to simmer.

Sheilas arrival at the motel from Perth introduces immediately one source of friction
between the two: they clearly have not been in touch with one another for many
decades. Each is just finding out such basic information as whether the other ever
married or had children. The audience sees, too, that the warmth of Bridies greeting:
Gee its good to see you is not reciprocated by Sheila. The audience wonders why
not. The revelations by the end of Act One will finally show the reason. The body
language described on page 26 indicates the deep underlying tension between the
two--yet the scene ends with their lifting the suitcase as they used to lift the coffins of
the dead: to the cries of Ichi, ni, san---Ya-ta! Their shared experiences are a strong
bond.

Journey through memory

For the rest of Act One, the shared memories of Bridie and Sheila become those of the
audience, through the dramatic techniques Misto uses. [outlined in Making drama out
of reality].

In Scene Three, the audience is reminded of how young Sheila was when she was
taken prisoner. The voice of a teenage girl sings part of Jerusalem, the stirring and
visionary song with words by English poet William Blake, and the mature Sheila joins

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in. (Later Bridie and Sheila sing it together.)

Bridies attitude from their first meeting as shipwreck survivors drifting in the sea is
protective of Sheila. She sees her as another stuck-up Pom, and hits her with her
Shoe-Horn to keep her awake. Sheila has been taught by her snobbish mother to look
down on the Irish, the label she puts on the Sydney nurse from Chatswood because of
her surname.

Further differences between the two surface in Scene Five, when the officers club
set up by the Japanese is described. But by the end of this scene they are recalling the
choir and orchestra of womens voices set up by Miss Dryburgh. Scene Six opens
with Bridie and Sheila in a conga line singing the parodies of well-known songs
theyd used to taunt their captors and keep their spirits up.

Pain and tension

Soon they are arguing, focusing on their differing attitudes to the British women who
in Bridies view were selling themselves for food to the Japanese. The tension rises
as more and more is revealed about the deteriorating conditions for the prisoners and
the relentless number of deaths, especially in the Belalau camp.

At the end of the Act, in a dramatic gesture, Sheila returns the Shoe-Horn. She had
claimed to sell it for quinine to save Bridies life--but in fact as she now reveals she
had been forced to sleep with the enemy to buy the medicine. She extorts from Bridie
the implicit admission that she would not have made that sacrifice for her. Bridie says
nothing, but cannot face Sheila. Sheila is shattered by the realisation:

All these years Ive told myself that youd have done the same for me. [Calmly] I
was wrong, though, wasnt I?
Act Two opens back in the studio, where Bridie and Sheila explain on the
documentary the appalling conditions in the death camp of Belalau. Suspense is built
by the revelation that orders had been given that no prisoners were to survive to the
end of the war. The audience wants to know how there could have been survivors.

They also want to know how or if the tension in the relationship between the two
women can be resolved. It becomes clear that the traumatised Sheila cannot in civilian
life face any sexual relationship; nor has she felt able to return to Britain or to face
remaining with her family in Singapore. She has led a quiet life as a librarian in Perth.
Her nights are filled with nightmarish recollections about Lipstick Larry, and she
drinks rather too much.

In contrast, Bridie had been happily married for years to the cheeky Australian soldier
who had waved and winked at her at Christmas behind the wire. She is now widowed
and childless.

Ambush and resolution

Misto is preparing an ambush for the audience. By Scene Twelve, Bridies disgrace
is revealed. Spooked when she is surrounded by a group of chattering Japanese
tourists in David Jones Food Hall, she runs away with a tin of shortbread and later

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pleads guilty in court to shoplifting. I still lie awake cringing with shame she tells
Sheila. She could not explain the truth about her phobia to the court or to her family
and friends.

The effect on Sheila is more than Bridie expected. She now decides that she can be at
peace only if she faces the truth in public. She explains:

There are probably thousands of survivors like us--still trapped in the war--too
ashamed to tell anyone.
Bridie urges her not to.

But in Scene Thirteen after they have recounted how they were eventually
discovered and rescued, days after the end of the war, it is in fact Bridie who reveals
the truth of Sheilas heroism and self-sacrifice. She then finds the courage to ask
Sheila to explain about her shoplifting arrest

The scene ends with the declaration Bridie has waited fifty years for:

And Id do it all over again if I had to....cause Bridies my friend...

The tensions between the two have now been resolved: the secrets are out, both the
personal ones and the long-hidden information about the experiences of the women
prisoners and internees. The brief and cheerful last scene shows their friendship
restored, the Shoe-Horn returned to its rightful owner, plans made for a Christmas
reunion, and, finally, the peacetime dance they had promised one another in the camp.
The Blue Danube plays:

It is the music of joy and triumph and survival.

The plays structure is based on the differences in character and temperament between
Bridie and Sheila which are gradually revealed to the audience. The action of the play
revisits their past hardships and terrors, but the final focus is on the trauma they have
suffered afterwards.

The revelation of the crises they have each faced is presented as a healing action,
which leads to the resolution of their differences and a satisfying closure to the play.

Mistos own motivations for researching these events and writing the play is made
clear in his Authors Note (p.16). His perceptions of Australias neglect to honour
such women as Bridie is suggested when she says:

In 1951 we were each sent thirty pounds. The Japanese said it was compensation.
Thats sixpence a day for each day of imprisonment.

Themes and concerns

The healing power of truth
Every drama takes its audience on a journey. The ending of the plays action not only
gives a sense of closure and completion, but also usually indicates what for the
playwright is of major importance.

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Throughout The Shoe-Horn Sonata Bridie and Sheila have uncovered events and
emotions they have kept hidden for half a century: Sheilas desperate gesture of

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swapping herself for the medicine to save Bridies life. Bridies constant but hidden
terror of the guards, which is shown when she runs from the shop when she is
surrounded by the harmless Japanese-speaking tourists.

The power of words is also made clear in the play. The women sing The Captives
Hymn at the opening of Act Two, but as they tell of their last dreadful months of
captivity, they recall the parodies of popular songs they sang in defiance of their
captors:
One day I killed a Jap/Killed a Jap/I hit him on the head/ With a bloody lump of
lead...

Revealing injustice
Misto has said that one purpose of his play is to show the injustices he believes have
been done to the memory of the nurses, and of the thousands of other women and
children who suffered with them. His Authors Note (p 16) makes this clear. Their
compensation afterwards was inadequate, and for fifty years no memorial was
organised for them. The bombing of ships full of women and children and the
shooting of nurses and Australian soldiers, breaking the international rules of war, was
in fact what is now called a war crime.

In particular the evidence given that medicines provided by the International Red
Cross lay unused outside the camp boundaries when children as well as women like
Sheila were dying inside is a chilling reminder of the inhumanity of war.

Historical context
John Mistos play, The Shoe-Horn Sonata, was inspired by the real-life experiences of
Australian nurses taken prisoner by the Japanese Army after the fall of Singapore in
l942, during World War 2.

From l942 to the end of the war in August 1945, they lived in primitive, at times
desperate conditions. Only 24 out of an original 65 were eventually brought back to
Australia in October, l945. Many had drowned or been shot dead as they were being
evacuated from Singapore when the Japanese forces captured it. Others died of
malnutrition and illness in the prison camps. Supplies sent to them by the Red Cross,
including food and necessary medicines, were almost always withheld by their
captors.

The writer, John Misto, wanted to make Australians aware of the heroism of these
nurses. He believed that it was disgraceful that, fifty years after that war had ended,
Australia had still not set up any memorial to its army nurses, even though many of
the Australian troops owed their lives to their care. Misto handed over all the prize
money he won with this play in l995 to the fund to build such a memorial.

Making drama out of reality

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Misto, a well-known writer of documentaries, did not wish to present the story of the
imprisoned Australian nurses as a documentary, but as a drama. He had to craft the
story so as to manipulate the emotions of his audience, and to keep their interest to the
end. Out of so much material, he had to make a deliberate choice, to achieve a
narrative arc with elements of suspense, surprise, confrontation and a final
resolution. There had to be tension to grip the audience.

The basic story is a grim one of a fight for survival, and of the traumatic
consequences of such suffering to the victims later lives. To hold an audience.

however, he needed to have elements of humour. Like Bruce Beresford when he

researched and wrote the screenplay for Paradise Road, Misto found that humour
and music were two of the main ways the nurses and their fellow internees helped
themselves to survive. Another was strong supportive friendships, based on the
Australian value of mateship. All these elements Misto used in his playscript.

To care about the fate of the nurses, the audience has to come to know them and feel
empathy for them.

Solving the problems 1: Resources

Misto has written this play for the requirements of contemporary theatrical
productions. A filmmaker may have literally hundreds of extras (as Bruce Beresford
did in Paradise Road). A school major production can often use fairly large numbers
of actors, depending on the size of the stage and the rehearsal time available. But
modern commercial theatres have to pay their way and they work on tight budgets.
Some of the plays they decide to present during a year will have perhaps six or eight
actors, but others will have only one or two, to help balance the theatres budget.

The Shoe-Horn Sonata, with only two characters on stage and an off-stage voice, is
an attractive script for a professional theatre to produce, and it has been seen in a
number of productions in Australian cities and in London. It requires only two sets: a
rudimentary television studio, indicated by the On Air sign and a microphone, and a
hotel room, with a bed and mini bar. Minimal props are needed, including a suitcase,
the Shoe-Horn, some photographs and embroidery.

The first problem: keeping the play affordable for theatre, Misto solves by casting
only two actors, and using a simple set.

Solving the problems 2: Keeping the audience interested

His second problem is how to keep an audience entertained and interested if for the
whole performance they are watching only two characters on stage. He does this by
using a wide variety of modern dramatic techniques.

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Misto writes extensively for television and in this stage play he has used his
familiarity with the use of photographic images and voice-over to support the actors

dialogue. He also uses the power of music to support his script. The images and
music provide constantly changing focuses for the audiences attention. They support
the highly emotional material that surfaces from the memories of the central
characters.

The use of song and of instrumental music has several purposes. First, it shows in
actuality to the audience the soothing and uplifting power of music. Music was a

crucial feature of the life support system in the camps. It also adds variety and
emotional sub-text to many of the plays scenes. It places them also in their historical
context. On some occasions it suggests the irony of the situations the two women
faced.

No photographs exist of these women in the prison camps, but a wide variety of other
images appear on screen as background to the dialogue. These include:

photographs taken of male P.O.W.s when they were liberated

photographs of the nurses arriving in Singapore from Belalau
contrasting images of Singapore: the affluent, confident imperial city before
its fall, and the bombed and burning city afterwards
the famous scenes of crowds in Martin Place, Sydney, when the war was
declared over [while the audience knows the women in Belalau were still
prisoners, destined for death]

Credibility

Such images are credibly part of the script because the central situation Misto sets up
is the making of a television documentary. The unseen presenter-interviewer, Rick,
has brought together to share their experiences a group of women survivors of the
camps. It is credible that the producer of such a program will have done extensive
research and assembled an archive of images.

Sometimes as backing to the photographic images, at other times to support some of

the womens spoken memories, Misto uses excerpts from more than a dozen songs
from the period, and such orchestral items as The Blue Danube Waltz and Danny Boy.
Particularly moving for the two characters and for the audience is the recreation of the
Captives Hymn, written in the camp by Margaret Dryburgh and sung every Sunday
by the women, and the playing of Ravels Bolero, one of the items the voice orchestra
presented at camp concerts.

The male voice of Rick adds variety to the sound texture of the play. The use of
spotlights, linking the use of harsh lighting by the prison guards and the strong

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lighting of the television studio, is another effective dramatic technique used.

The action of the play moves between the television studio where recollections of the
past are fairly formally presented by the women as Rick interviews them, and the
hotel, where the tensions between them appear in their outwardly casual conversations
and are eventually resolved. This resolution is eventually made public in the cathartic
last interview.

Solving the problems 3: Making it bearable

A third problem, maybe the major one Misto faced, is how to make bearable for a
modern audience a play about suffering, cruelty, deprivation and death. This same

problem has been faced by writers and filmmakers dealing with such overwhelming
tragedies as the Nazi holocaust. The approach Misto took is similar in some ways to
those taken by Roberto Benigni in his movie Life is Beautiful and by Stephen
Spielberg in the movie Schindlers List, based on the Thomas Kenneally book,
Schindlers Ark.

Humour is used, as indeed many victims have used it , as a defence mechanism

against despair and hopelessness. We see this when the Prime Ministers message
finally reaches the Australian nurses: Keep smiling! and, facing death in appalling
conditions, their reaction is to break up in helpless laughter at the irony of the
message. The contrast between the prim British schoolgirl Sheila, and the more
practical Sydney nurse Bridie provides another source of humour.

The other method used is the device of distancing. The characters and their audience
are distanced in time from the events recalled and presented in the play. The women
in the play have not only survived the camps, they have lived through the subsequent
years and have in some ways dealt with the trauma. Now as survivors they can look
back.

Misto makes no attempt to reproduce on stage the appalling brutalities carried out in
the camps. We the audience do not see the rotten food or the beatings or the women
left to die on the forced marches. We do not see the graves or the grave-diggers.
Instead Misto presents these as reports remembered by Bridie and Sheila.

He treats them as the classical Greek dramatists did: as obscene --literally to be off-
stage-- and therefore reported to the audience in eloquent words, not shown. The
Shoe-Horn Sonata uses words, reinforced with pictures and music, to establish these
horrors in the imaginations of the audience.