1915 - UNDER THE SURFACE 

It is somewhere within the year of 1915. Families in this small rural community are representative of many communities around Australia, and indeed the world. Lives continue, despite the ongoing absence o men which drains individuals, families and the community at large.

Most Australians first land in Egypt to continue their training. For many, the adventure continues, to some extent, with the War and their engagement in it still removed. News from Australian War correspondents reaches home over the ensuing months. Reports of the Gallipoli landing illustrate the great difficulties the Australians and New Zealanders face, and the losses they experience. Slowly this news begins to wear away the brave faces of duty.

Many feel confused. There is a discrepancy between what they hear reported through Charles Beans’ newspaper articles and the letters from the soldiers, all of which are censored. Why is this so difficult? Why are so many Australians being lost when the gains are so marginal? Why is this war taking so long?

Each family tried to make sense of the ‘whole’ picture so as to better understand the set of circumstances their loved ones are placed in. Women and children continue working their farms and going to school; attempting to normalise their lives as best they can. Yet everything about their lives during this time is anything but normal. Some receive news about the landing on April 25th very early and are forever changed. Some struggle to recover from the loss of men leaving and the potential grief that this foreshadows.

But adversity unites and builds this country. As women around the world work toward equality and a way forward to peace, they begin to empower themselves. They show their love in the only way they can; from home.

This production is a community commemorating through theatre. It is a collective memory of histroy and tradition and our Anzacs. We remember, not because the sacrifice and loss was so great, or because the outcome was or was not beneficial. We remember and commemorate because it informs and shapes who we are today, right now.

We remember because, at the deepest level within us, there is a universal yearning for peace that is, in essence, who we all are…. Under the Surface… a people searching to regain what is innate within us… Love.

Jane Hille, Writer