Temporal setting: 11 November 1930s
Location notes:
The play takes place in 'a hotel facing the Cenotaph'. Doing some simple secondary research into the area, this is most likely referring to the Australia Hotel, which opened an extension from Castlereagh Street onto Martin Place in the 1920s. The Dictionary of Sydney states it would become a popular haunt for servicemen in the World War II era.
Though un-represented in the play, the detailed soundscape evokes the city, the mourning crowds, as well as the odd silence that sweeps over the booming metropolis on Armisticetide.
Quotes
For a while JOHN stares through the open window. His eyes slowly roam over the crowd and then fall upon the Cenotaph. Silence, then the sound of a military band commencing softly to play... The crowd outside reverently take up the words of the hymn. A motor-horn sounds in the distance, and the noise of the city, waiting to lapse into silence, seems fretfully impatient to give vent to its usual volume of din.
(p. 151)
