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Laughing in the face of life's greatest crisis Friday 2 April 1999 Some folks dream of the greasepaint, the lights and the fame ... Tracy Harvey always dreamt of bedpans and thermometers. Her 1994 book Dear Mum, I'm on the telly! chronicles the adventures of a nurse- turned actor. So it is probably a safe bet that she has kicked around the idea for her latest production for quite some time. In the new comedy Wonderful Ward, Tracy plays nurse Shelly Lung in the unlikely setting of a cancer ward. Her patients include Ann Phelan, Reg Evans, Shane Conner and Louise Siversen, and each of them are suffering through or triumphing over a different form of cancer. As we follow them through the trials of their illnesses, we get to see how people live and die with cancer, how it affects their families and friends, and how laughter helps to make tragedy a little more tolerable. Harvey and Phelan are having a cup of coffee and talking about the International Melbourne Comedy Festival. Harvey has just finished a successful nine-month run with Mum's The Word, but says she is a bit nervous about this one because she is not just acting in it, she and Stefo Nantsou co-wrote it. "I have had the idea for a few years," she says, "and it was devised with the help of my partner Greg Dee. We have been writing scripts for a sitcom version of the show, and have had some interest, particularly from Channel 7" In addition to the funding she received from The Pratt Foundation, the Myer Foundation and the Besen Family Foundation, she has invested some of her savings into bringing it to us at the Melbourne Comedy Festival, she says, "because the subject matter is important. I wanted to have a look at death and illness, particularly cancer-caused death, because everyone I have spoken to has been affected by it. Without being preachy, I think it allows us to look at it and find the laughter in what is still the last taboo". Phelan says that when she tells people that she is doing a comedy about cancer, she gets such responses as "Thank God!" and "It's about time". Her character is a "wonderful, flamboyant, slightly off-the-wall woman ... one of those people you often hope would be in a cancer ward if you have to be there. The wonderful thing about the script is that even though it is a comedy, there are brilliant moments of absolute truth in there. That's the kind of comedy I love doing. I love a laugh that comes sometimes from something quite tragic. That is reality." In the course of the conversation, we begin to talk about our own experiences with humor in these dire situations. I recall accidentally flinging a tampon out of my purse into another family's private visitation at a funeral home when picking out an urn for my mother's ashes. Tracy remembers her grandmother's ashes blowing into her face on a windy day when she and her mother went to send grandma off at the pier where she used to swim. Charisse Kininmonth, who is drinking coffee with us too, says that when a friend of hers had to endure a breast reconstruction, she didn't know what to say to make it better, so she brought her a bag of those "strawberries and cream" lollies and told her to "choose a nipple". As Tracy said, "How many times, after the tragedy of the loss of something so great, do you absolutely piss yourself laughing about certain things that happened then, which you didn't feel were appropriate at the time to laugh at?" Harvey has done a lot of research and spent much time talking with cancer patients and nurses. She has been rehearsing Wonderful Ward at the Queen Vic Women's Health Centre. The play is being endorsed by the Peter MacCallum Hospital and previewed there and at the Royal Women's Hospital. Proceeds from those performances will be donated to the respective hospitals.
Wonderful Ward will run until 25 April at the Melbourne Town Hall in the Supper Room.
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