Soldier Boy The Play home page
Introduction
Christopher Bantick
The welcome appearance of the dramatisation of Anthony Hill’s bestselling novel, Soldier Boy, will broaden its already established status as an iconic text of war. Where the novel told the story of Jim Martin, a Melbournian and the youngest Australian soldier to die in the First World War, it transfers seamlessly to performance.
Over the two Acts, several themes are explored and enable extensive opportunities for classroom adaptation. These include: family, the rush to enlist, mateship, Gallipoli, death by disease and grief. Moreover the play is entirely portable and is not dependent on detailed scenery, stage sets or large performance spaces. It would work equally well in a classroom, hall or theatre.
The novel was pitched to upper primary and lower secondary levels. It was a timely addition to classroom study of the Anzac and digger tradition, giving rise to the legend of Anzac. The play is highly suitable for a similar audience.
One of the major themes of the play is family and the costs of war, let alone the war itself. Letters become a significant part of the communication of the play and these alone present many classroom extended activities around the play performance.
This adaptation does not compromise the detail of the novel or the tone. There is integrity to the original story of Jim Martin and students will be able to act out the lives of the main characters and thereby deepen their understanding of the consequences of war.
Educationally, the play is invaluable in bringing, with great sensitivity, the reality and tragedy of war into the classroom through the means of performance. Opportunities for discussion and further research emanating from the play are considerable. There are several roles in the adaptation, and this too accentuates its appeal for classroom use.
Christopher Bantick is a Melbourne writer and a former senior Literature master and Head of History at a Melbourne Independent school.
