Photo courtesy of Bulimba Studios.
A Queensland tour of the multi-award-winning musical, A Girl’s Guide to World War, opens at RPAC on – appropriately – International Women’s Day.
Written by celebrated playwright Katy Forde, with music by Aleathea Monsour, the show throws into glorious light a largely forgotten part of women’s WW1 history – the establishment and operation of a front-line hospital in war-ravaged and desperate Serbia – complete with its own ambulance service.
Katy says that her interest was sparked by a plaque on The Mansions in Brisbane dedicated to Dr Lilian Cooper, Queensland’s first female surgeon.
“I started researching. It was really hard to find stuff, but it was so exciting. Lilian Cooper and her lifetime partner, Miss Josephine Bedford, had unsuccessfully offered their services to the armed forces, so they turned to the volunteer-run Scottish Women’s Hospitals, which had set up war-time city hospitals staffed by female medicos from around the world.
“They didn’t expect to be working in the first front-line hospital run by women, but that’s where they ended up, carrying out care and surgery under bombardment. Sydney-born doctor Agnes Bennett was the Commanding Officer, Dr Lillian Cooper was Chief Surgeon.”
Women and suffragette movements from around the world supported them wholeheartedly, and the women managed to obtain a fleet of Model T Fords and convert them to ambulances, operated under the management of Josephine Bedford. Their hospital boasted an X-ray unit and an amazing level of hygiene; the Army hospitals began sending their surgeons there for training and wounded soldiers bribed ambulance drivers to take them to the Bennett Unit.
Love and conflict, history and humour, an all-woman show (even the Serbian General) woven through with live music from the award-winning all-girl band Vix and the Slick Chix.
A Girl’s Guide to World War will play at RPAC on March 8. For tickets, go to rpac.com.au.