Cry Havoc
A Political War Drama
Hailed as a female Journey’s End, this classic play – the story of nurses serving on the Bataan peninsula in the Philippines during WWII – is a compelling, caustic revelation of human beings under fire. In a makeshift dugout, subjected to gunfire, thirteen very different women emerge to offer a collective reaction to war. These include the strong-minded doctor, her restrained and poised assistant, and the volunteer nurses: a vacuous Southern girl, a swaggering bully, a couple of timid aesthetes, an ex-burlesque performer and the inevitable spy. They get on each other’s nerves, arrest the wrong person for spying, and ultimately confront the real traitor. In the end, they are rescued from their buried dugout – only to face the firing squad.