Shoe-horn Sonata - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Shoe-horn Sonata

MODULE

A: Distinctively Visual

- An Introduction -Slide2

Context

World War II

The war in the Asia Pacific - the Japanese advance

Stretched from 1941-45

While the U.S. and its allies were occupied in Europe with the gradual defeat of Nazi Germany, the Empire of Japan attacked America’s naval ‘centre’ - Pearl Harbour - and commenced an invasion of the Asia Pacific toward the north coast of AustraliaSlide3

The Asia Pacific

Sumatra and Singapore - the historical settings

in

Shoe-Horn

The Japanese advanceSlide4

Shoe-Horn

Historical Context

John Misto’s 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.

Source:

http://hsc.csu.edu.au/english/standard/language/elect2/shoehorn/hist.html

Slide5

‘The Unacknowledged’

Before reading and analysing the play, read Jane McCarthy’s preface, ‘The Unacknowledged’, as a class

Extract key points from the preface that may be used later on when analysing themes, language, and their exploration of meaning and contextSlide6

Act One | Scene One

Opening image of Bridie standing “at complete attention”, re-enacting the bow performed to Japanese POW camp guards “in a spotlight”

This image of submission and powerlessness reinforces how her war-time memories remain ever-present over 50 years on

Bridie’s anecdotal dialogue reveals that the “us” she refers to - the imprisoned women after Singapore’s fall - would stand bowing “for hours…in the middle of the jungle”

This commences the audience’s visualisation of the context that enforced Bridie’s submission and powerlessness. This visualisation of the women’s imprisonment will gradually be built up by Misto’s theatrical style and use of devices throughout the playSlide7

“…several 1940 posters for the Women’s Army” are projected onto a screenSlide8

Projected also are photographs of the women “disembarking at Singapore…excited and quite happy”Slide9

The projected images of war recruitment posters and excited nurses arriving at Singapore are juxtaposed against Bridie’s account of the city’s invasion. The imagery in her dialogue provides

mini vignettes

(short, impressionistic snapshots) of war’s encroaching horror

“Hundreds” of Japanese planes flying over “in V formations”

Hospitals “overflowing” after the bombs start falling, “wounded people everywhere”

Sailing away from Singapore, they “stood on deck…and watched the city burn”Slide10

Misto’s Theatrical Style

The play’s opening scene illustrates Misto’s use of projected images and music, which he will also combine with voiceover, to support the often highly emotional material that is represented in the characters’ journey through memory

This stimulating theatrical style allows Misto to create images on stage that convey the play’s cornerstone ideas and experiences of suffering and mateship. The audience is also prompted to visualise a range of distinctively visual scenes as a means of empathetically connecting to the hardship being endured in the characters’ past and present

Throughout the play, the distinctively visual is harnessed to generate an acute sense of

‘pathos’

in the character-audience relationshipSlide11
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Pathos

The emotional appeal of what the composer is representing—the appeal to the responders’ sympathies and imaginations

Requires the responder to identify with the composer/characters, and often to imagine their experiences (especially of suffering)

Present in the values, beliefs, and understandings of the composer, as represented through the meaning being conveyed

The power with which the composer’s message moves the responder to a decision or action or state of enlightenment

Often relies on vivid, emotional, and sensory language