The soul of a hostage

Hostage of Fortune
Directed by Meg Kanowski and Katrina Devery
Metro Theatre, Brisbane
September 10-20, Wednesday to Saturday 8pm
Bookings 3221 1527

By Lynda Hansen

Director Katrina Devery studied theatre at University of Southern Queensland and has worked for 17 years in Community Street Arts Company, La Boite Theatre and Queensland Theatre Company. Devery is also an accomplished performer.

Meg Kanowski's theatre career began in the 1980s at Queensland University with community-based theatre; in 1989 she started freelance directing. She has extensive experience working with people with intellectual and physical disabilities.

Hostage of Fortune, a one-woman play, tells of the life of Liz Navratil, who has lived and struggled with cerebral palsy. The directors, in collaboration with Navratil, have used the metaphor of war to profile the issues arising from Navratil's fight with her disability.

Navratil has grown up in institutions called "spastic centres" where she is denied the chance to discover her sexuality and intellect. Hostage of Fortune traces her father's life, from when he fled his home in Czechoslovakia during the second world war to his search for a place in Australia in which to feel "at home".

Inspiration from Navratil's great, great uncle, who lived as a virtual outlaw in Hungary, provides a dramatic element to the play. Relocation is also a major theme, as Navratil runs to a place of belonging and her father keeps moving around different enclaves of immigrant communities.

Hostage of Fortune was staged at La Boite Theatre in 1995, and at the Brisbane Inaugural Festival in 1996.

Devery told Green Left Weekly, "You can't meet or talk or observe Liz without sensing the strength of her soul".

From GLW issue 289