Intelligence of a hitherto unannounced new theatre at the Australian War Memorial and the production chosen to launch it in July (here) has stirred up a storm in Canberra’s theatre scene.

The strange secrecy of the decision, described by Australian War Memorial Director Matt Anderson as “a deliberate choice”, has called up questions from local theatre practitioners as to how much consultation the memorial undertook and why there was no perceived tender process or call for expressions of interest.

The play chosen is 21 Hearts: Vivian Bullwinkel and The Nurses of the Vyner Brooke by Jenny Davis, staged in April last year by the community Theatre 180 in Perth.

But in the same month, John Misto’s famous 1995 play Shoehorn Sonata, which also focuses on the Banka Island massacre of nurses during World War II, opened at the Mill Theatre in Fyshwick. Director of the company Lexi Sekuless wants to know why they weren’t given a look-in.

Sekuless has now come out with a public statement warning of what she calls “a cultural cringe, which harms the city.”

“Canberra’s cultural sector is being quietly undermined by an insidious bias – one that assumes anything created here, by locals, must be second-rate,” she writes.

Last year when her team revived The Shoe-Horn Sonata, she says, they had reached out to the Australian War Memorial, highlighting the play’s historical and cultural significance, especially considering its creation in the 1990s was key to the lobbying effort to have a memorial for nurses placed on Anzac Parade.

“Memorial staff dismissed us. They did nothing… meanwhile, when a company from outside Canberra presents the exact same topic, the response is markedly different: support, coverage, and legitimacy.”

In her view, there is a fixed, toxic belief that anything from Canberra must be second-rate, a belief she believes may be now shared by elements of the local media.

“I wish 21 Hearts all the best. It promises to be a beautiful production. But it is time to take the cultural cringe to task, to wake up and recognise that Canberra’s contributions are not inferior. It is time to stop the unjustified snobbery and the misguided view that if it comes from somewhere else it must be better.”

“This city deserves more. Its creatives deserve respect.”

Salute to nurses launches memorial’s new theatre