Australia’s contributions to wartime efforts, and the valour of Australian soldiers during those times, continue to define our national character. More than a century after Australia’s inaugural ANZAC Day commemorations in 1916, the mateship and tenacity of ‘our boys’ are still held up among the values our political leaders continue to align with our national spirit.
While countless tales of soldiers’ wartime courage have been brought to the stage and screen over the years (as well as to a number of great books on the subject), for many Australians, the battles of second world war – which saw fighting occur in places closer to home than any other wartime conflict before – are especially steeped in these national values.
In the context of the Australian theatre scene, Perth/Boorloo company Theatre 180 has been steadily building a strong reputation for its compassionate retellings of real-life Australian wartime stories, including several plays based on the events of the second world war.
Previous works include its ‘cinestage’ productions Sydney II: Lost and Found in 2021 and The Lighthouse Saga, which toured regionally in WA in 2025.
Its current season of 21 Hearts: Vivian Bullwinkel and the Nurses of the Vyner Brooke – currently playing in Perth before an interstate tour – presents another true story from wartime, and in doing so it brings audiences piercingly close to experiences of Australian military personnel and Allied civilians during the fall of Singapore during the second world war, and their fate in prisoner-of-war camps in Japanese-occupied Indonesian islands.
21 Hearts review – quick links
All female cast puts rare spotlight on women’s wartime efforts
Written by playwright and author Jenny Davis, this play has been shown in many theatres around the country already, including in a season at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra in July 2025. Two years on from its debut, and despite its traditional format, it continues to hold its own as a resonant contemporary work.
This is mostly due to the combined energies of its all female ensemble cast and the epic nature of story itself. Apart from shedding light on Australian life in the 1940s – its societal norms and gender structures in particular – it exposes dark tales of suffering that are often left out of modern discussions of Australians at war.
The play also does what many famous Australian military stories have so far failed to do in putting the role of women firmly in the spotlight.
The six women at the centre of this play represent a small group of the 65 young Australian nurses who were stationed at Australian and British military hospitals in Malaya (now Malaysia) and later in Singapore, where they treated the wounded soldiers returning from the Singaporean jungles until the island’s fall to the Japanese in February 1942.
The story’s protagonist is an Australian nurse, Vivian Bullwinkel (1915-2000), who while not quite a household name, is the most famous and well-remembered of the group.
Played in this season by the polished and indomitable Rebecca Davis, Bullwinkel, then aged 25, was the sole survivor of the dreadful real-life Bangka Island Massacre that happened in February 1942.
Davis brings great warmth to Bullwinkel’s incredible experiences – first as a young military nurse in Singapore and then in war camps across various parts of what are now Indonesian territories – with agility and quietly assured command of the space.
Davis is joined by actors Caitlin Beresford-Ord, Michelle Fornasier, Alex Jones, Helen Searle and Tegan Mulvany, each of whom bring their individual characters (as five other young Australian nurses serving with Bullwinkel in Singapore) to vivid life.
Dialogue-heavy script supported by filmic visuals
From the outset, it’s clear this work has two main engines underpinning its success. The first is its dialogue-heavy script, which while informing many of its strengths, also point to a few of its weaknesses.
These weak spots emerge in parts where the work’s text seems to oversaturate the development of certain characters’ relationships and moments of dramatic tension. At times, its dialogue gives some characters so much to say there is little room left to fully appreciate their actions and gestures, which, if left alone, could more powerfully reveal deeper aspects of their lives (including more layers of their inner worlds).
Read: The Normal Heart review – a stirring revival of a seminal gay play
This is also true of how the work’s sound and screen visuals (sound by Ben Collins, visuals by Gneiss Design), which, while powerful, are also sometimes also crowded out by heavy dialogue. In contrast, the scenes where the show’s sound, lighting and filmic visuals frame the actors’ silent moving bodies are often the most effective in conveying its most affecting tones.
That said, this play is first and foremost about bringing an unforgettable true story to life, and in this regard, its script and direction (by Stuart Halusz) is utterly fitting.
It’s also an exemplary model of what a strong, cohesive ensemble cast is capable of, as each individual actor brings the necessary stamina, vocal technique and nuanced character acting to their roles to create a larger whole.
Overall, while 21 Hearts is not the kind of cutting-edge, zeitgeisty piece of contemporary performance that many theatre companies and collectives are producing at the moment, it stands up as a vital work that deserves attention within an arts scene aiming for a diversity of stories, shared with audiences in myriad ways.
Furthermore, in these times when so many feel despairing about the state of a world – drenched as it is in acts violence and war – these stories of difficult past events seem crucial to our understanding of the horrors we are seeing today.
21 Hearts is that kind of story, and it is likely to continue awakening audiences’ minds to the complexities of war as the production crosses the country on its upcoming national regional tour.
