A new play about Australian nurse Vivian Bullwinkel, will be the first live production to be staged in the Australian War Memorial’s new theatre, accessible from the entrance foyer.

Written by Jenny Davis and directed by Stuart Halusz, 21 Hearts: Vivian Bullwinkel and The Nurses of the Vyner Brooke, traces the events that led to Bullwinkel’s imprisonment and survival in 1942, while honouring the 21 nurses murdered on Banka Island in present-day Indonesia after they had surrendered to Japanese troops.

The play covers similar territory to Bruce Beresford’s 1997 film Paradise Road, itself based on White Coolies by one of the nurses, Betty Jeffrey, and also to Australian playwright John Misto’s two-hander, The Shoe Horn Sonata, winner of the 1995 Australia Remembers Prize, staged last year at the Mill Theatre in Fyshwick.

Playwright Davis says: “This story doesn’t ask for pity – it demands presence… audiences aren’t just learning history, they’re feeling it. It’s emotional, yes, but ultimately life-affirming.”

Rebecca Davis, a veteran WA actor, producer for hosting company Theatre 180 and co-director of a Perth entertainment agency, plays Bullwinkel and describes the play as both a tribute and a reclamation.

War Memorial director Matt Anderson says it “speaks directly to the brutality of war while also allowing us to see the nurses of Banka Island for who they were; young, funny, devoted and professional.”

The performances are the centrepiece of public programs at the Memorial to commemorate the 80^th anniversary of the end of World War II.

21 Hearts: Vivian Bullwinkel and The Nurses of the Vyner Brooke, Australian War Memorial Theatre, July 23-August 3.