Shakespeare's King Lear has a pantomime structure to it - the eponymous King as a pantomime dame, Regan & Goneril as the ugly sisters, the Fool as Silly Billy, Edmund and Edgar as two girls in tights competing for Principal Boy, and so on. Dame Lear isn't a pantomime, of course, and certainly not fun for all the family.  I have used adult comedy as a counterpoint to the pathos, and beg forgiveness from the aficionados.

When the Dutch East India Company's flagship, Batavia, set sail on October 28, 1628, no-one could imagine the saga of surreal horror that followed nearly nine months later, when she struck the reefs off Houtman's Abrolhos Islands, providing the greatest tragedy in Australian history and arguably of any maritime disaster.

You could say the story isn't new - man turning into monster on a deserted island. J.M. Barrie satirised it in The Admirable Crichton. William Golding more graphically illustrated its latent threat in Lord of the Flies. There is a fundamental difference with Batavia - it really happened. Every terrible bit of it is true, meticulously recounted and recorded.

NO WAY BACK
A VAD’s Journey

This is a 45-minute dramadoc with music about the Voluntary Aid Detachment, volunteer nurses principally during WW1.  Many were shire girls and vicars’ daughters who couldn’t even boil an egg, swept up by the jingoism of the time.  They wanted to do something useful, but had little idea of what they were getting into.  Nobody really did, of course.  They were derided by many professional nurses and treated initially as skivvies.  This was a savage irony for a class who grew up having servants and knew little of the world outside.  Most stuck it out, but were changed forever by what they saw and experienced.  Many were posted to France as the horror intensified, and died out there.  For those who survived, there was no way back to the Edwardian drawing room.

NO WAY BACK was written to support the Nursing Memorial Appeal, a fundraising initiative for a memorial at the National Arboretum to all the nurses who died in the two World Wars.  Its latest version premiered at the New Cavendish Club (originally the VAD Ladies’ Club, founded by Lady Amphtill) on 18 April 2013, when the guests of honour were The Lord & Lady Fellowes.

"Get it all on record now - get the films - get the witnesses - because somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened"
General Dwight D. Eisenhower

"I was teaching in the Orthodox Jewish School in Nth Bondi in 1945, when news of the concentration camps reached Australia. I had parents of the children I was teaching weeping as they told me their whole extended families had been killed, and they and their children were all that was left.  The Magical Box is one of the most moving plays I have read about the events of that time.  We produced and presented it as a play for voices, with all its sound effects, to a live audience on Sunday 25 August 2013.  The response was very rewarding, and after its 55 minute run we had a sustained ovation".
Juliette Palmer-Frederick,  Blue Mountains Radio Players, Katoomba, New South Wales

So, giving deep offence to the aficionados, I thought I'd try my editing skills on grand opera. Could a grand opera be boiled down to 60 minutes and retain its integrity? In other words, could it be perceived holistically rather than as highlights? I soon discovered how relatively easy this was. Identify all the recognisable milestones (famous scenes, arias) and join them back up again, maintaining the story's thread. I can hear sensitive souls cringing. Well, here's the interesting thing. I have edited Tosca, La Traviata, The Magic Flute, Rigoletto and Carmen down to 60 minutes each. All have been successfully performed. Tosca was a one-hour individual performance. But La Traviata was linked with Carmen for a full evening's performance, and The Magic Flute with Rigoletto. Yes, audiences were able to experience two grand operas in one evening. Now here's the really interesting take – discounting the 'elite', when audiences were challenged on how it had been possible to see La Traviata and Carmen in one evening, they weren't aware of what had been left out!

When music and libretto are cut out in this way, the through-composition is broken, and linking speech had to be written in places to ensure it all joined up again. No-one seemed to notice. Unashamedly populist, 60-minute Opera could have an interesting future with expanded audiences.

If there's an idea burning inside you which you think would make a good script, I may be interested. If you feel you lack the skills or the time to develop it, share it with me. If I like it, it may inspire me to write something. If I do, I'll respect your contribution and share copyright with you. If you're interested, just email me john@drewrys.com.