Christine Dunstan Productions
The Shoe-Horn Sonata

Featuring Maggie Kirkpatrick and Belinda Giblin

Tuesday 27 March 8pm
Wednesday 28 March 1pm and 8pm

Alexander Theatre

In 1942, 65 Australian Army nurses were trapped in Singapore when the Japanese invaded. They were the first Australian women to serve in battle...and the first to die. The Shoe-Horn Sonata is a powerful and compelling play about those women, their triumph, friendship and survival. More particularly, it's a play about the enduring friendship of two of them, Sheila and Bridie.

The play is set in 1995 where Sheila and Bridie are reunited for the first time, 50 years after the end of the War, for the filming of a television documentary. On one level The Shoe Horn Sonata is about their incarceration by the Japanese in a prisoner of war camp following the fall of Singapore and the brutality and hardship they experienced during those dreadful five years. However, as the play develops, we discover more about Sheila and Bridie and we realise that this reunion is essential if their emotional wounds are to be healed. Woven into their half century of separation are a shoe-horn, a terrible secret and incredible loyalty and love which form their unlikely friendship. The Shoe-Horn Sonata is a wonderfully funny and deeply touching play.

"A wonderfully terrible, inspiring, life-affirming and often very funny tale...the performers are superb...together they reaffirm faith in humanity" The Bulletin

To hear information about the Shoe-Horn Sonata visit the Monash Performing Arts Podcast webpage .

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