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Violine written by Joe Woodward directed by Herman Pretorius designed by Kaoru Alfonso |
Violine is a work of fiction; but with direct reference to actual events recording in the war-time diary of a World War Two veteran and prisoner of war: Jack Woodward.
The Play
"I can talk to you can't I!" begins Cyril. Through an inner monologue, largely delivered in a soliloquy we glimpse the significance of his World War 2 experience in his whole life.
Just before he was captured at Kalamata Bay in Greece and on the day he was released at Klagenfurt Hospital in Austria, Cyril was playing his violin. Throughout the years he was known as The Fiddler or "Violine". Over this time, he kept an accurate diary which plays a significant role in his last years and months on the earth. "What was lost on that beach?"
Act 1
In Act 1, Cyril longs to play music with his wife Terri. But on this particular day, there is something wrong. There is an ominous visit from a stranger named Carl. This exasperates, Cyril's processing of his diary which he sees as a book of clues for his life and death. It is not a sentimental document for the amusement of an "idiot simpleton". Rather it is the blueprint or text with patterns and clues to be studied. Through it, ghostly spectres of former characters, including himself and a former romantic interest, haunt his mind and challenge him to find key answers for his life before his journey into death.
He becomes aware of another "confinement" looming and all that it entails. The sense of being abandoned is again current. It is as if the events of 1941 are still real.
His wife, Terri, looks after him. But she is ill and cannot continue. He must go into a nursing home.
The smashing of his fiddle becomes a motif for his thinking: playing a more central role than even his loss of freedom. The letters of Fran, his former love, crystalize aspects of his own nature and way of dealing with things. This is mirrored in his brief moments with Anna and his confrontation with the spirit of his wife in Act 3. As he is almost lost in his own soliloquy, he sees two young lovers in the street outside his window. There is a sense of something physical that contrasts with Cyril's head in the clouds and seeking of the eternal.
Act 2
Cyril is now struggling to keep control at the moment of having to leave his home to enter an institution. The struggle against humiliation is compounded with the Corinth experience where the Australian prisoners were herded in a compound with Italian prisoners of the Greeks. This was significant because only weeks earlier, the Australians had been fighting the Italian armies in Northern Africa. There was much animosity between the two groups. Yet Cyril is befriended by Martine, an Italian. But in these moments of comfort, there is the boding of ill as Cyril's son, along with the Social Worker and Sister Bell try to get him out of the house. For Cyril it brings to mind the image of the time he faced Heinreich Himmler and the humiliation and fear that accompanied the meeting. He turns to the one thing that can act as a comfort: his music. So he plays Stardust by Hogie Charmichael into the interval.
Act 3
Cyril is now a resident of "Guardians" a dementia unit and nursing home. For him, it is Klagenfurt Hospital. Here he suffered from an extremely painful ear infection. He recalls the "Angel of Light" in Sister Bonaventure. Mid the horror, there is light and a sense of hope. Anna, from The Rhineland, offers a sensual possibility that is rejected by Cyril. He becomes more aware of the inner fears within him. He meets Helmut who has to get back to Vienna to find his family. In their loss, the Germans are seen as having unreal expectations for their future. Cyril is more of a realist, but keeps his council while still a prisoner amongst the enemy. Initially without his violin, he is lost. But soon it is delivered to the hospital and on the last day of the war, he plays for the wounded and dying. All of this parallel's his existence at Guardians. But it is only in his wife, Terri's death, that he can directly talk with her about his own experience and hear of her questioning of their lives together. She becomes the third and final ghost figure to confront him and shake him from his life's state of denial. "What was lost on that beach?"
The period of April 1941 to May 1945, was to forever affect the life of Cyril Farmer and those who loved him. But in Guardians he is confined again. The War resumes from where it left off. Cyril either surrenders again or fights to the death. He is now a captive both in the physical sense and a captive of his own mind: now confined by his growing dementia. The journey from the top of Greece to Kalamata Beach is relived and this time ends in a victory of sorts. The period of April 1941 to May 1945, was to forever affect the life of Cyril Farmer and those who loved him. The means he used to rise above the filth and the obscenity of the time, became the means to approach all his life &ldots; and his death.
Historical significance
Factual war-time details used in the text are backed up by research and anecdotal reference through the diary of Jack Woodward (P.O.W., in Stalag 18a, Klagenfurt, Austria 1941-1945).
Other than this, any similarity between people living or dead is strictly coincidental.
Joe Woodward
(June 1995/April 2001/August 2003)
