Sincere thanks to Margot Hillel for a very positive and extended review of Soldier Boy The Play in Reading Time, online magazine of The Children's Book Council of Australia for 13-17 October 2024. A thorough and understand review is worth a thousand times anything an author might say about their work.

Soldier Boy: The Play

By Admin on Oct 13, 2024 06:30 am

The post Soldier Boy: The Play appeared first in Reading Time.

Anthony Hill, Soldier Boy: the Play, Passwords, August 2024, 105 pp., RRP $24.99 (pbk), ISBN 9780992327750

What a tragic story this is: the death of the youngest Australian Anzac, Jim Martin, who died of ‘enteric fever’.  Anthony Hill has written about Jim before, in his novel of the same name. In his author’s notes at the beginning of this book, Hill writes that he was helping at his local theatre company, he suddenly decided that he would dramatise his novel himself. This book is the result.

Christopher Bantick, a writer and former history and literature teacher, provides a foreword to the book and suggests that the dramatized version could be performed by upper primary and lower secondary school students. Hill has written the play with numerous parts to allow maximum participation.

The staging sometimes has two parallel scenes on the stage at the one time, such as when Jim and his mother are writing letters to each other. Such a scene is doubly powerful as it allows the audience to understand the effect that the non-delivery of his mother’s letters has had on Jim. This is heightened by sheets of paper falling from the flied denoting the fact that the letters were never received.

In another scene where Jim is writing to his mother and she to him, we are alerted to how the reality of the situation in Gallipoli and indeed at home, can be distorted. Neither Jim nor his mother wants to upset the other so Jim does not tell of the deaths, flies and disease at Gallipoli and Amelia does not tell him of the threat of drought in Victoria and the way his friend Rex is being treated by the authorities. This is a minor replication of how the government kept the reality of the number of casualties from the people at home as they wanted to keep up morale.

Hill has provided extensive stage directions and suggestions for scenery as well as recommendations for songs to further create the atmosphere of WW 1. Hill captures the camaraderie among the men as well as themes of home and family, the importance of communication, the hardships of the Gallipoli campaign, courage as well as death and grief. Courage is explored in a number of ways, including that of young Rex Venables, a conscientious objector, who, in a time of patriotic fervour, remains committed to his pacifist beliefs. He and his family all suffer for this – he is badly treated both by the legal system and the camp where he is sent, and his mother receives so many white feathers she has to move.

In one early scene Jim’s mother says: ‘No good ever comes of lying about your age’, prophetic words as Jim’s lie ends in death and grief. The cover photo on the book is a poignant one; a boy who is clearly not the required 18 years old looks straight at the reader.

This play is another effective way of bringing to readers something of the history and tragedy of war and gives many openings for further work and discussion about the themes and issues raised.

There are teaching notes, as well as other useful additional information at Hill’s website.

Reviewed by Margot Hillel