Five great plays …about illness or trauma, and recovery

Orwell on Jura

by Tom McNab - in the anthology 1936: Berlin and other plays

Cast: 9m/2f

Plagued by ill-health, George Orwell travelled to the remote island of Jura determined to write his last work. This is the vivid portrait of a man wrestling with his ghosts as he struggles to finish his seminal novel, 1984. The play depicts his life on the island and his recovery from a boating accident as he deals with his visitors, real and imagined, with wry humour and perceptive wit.

Why it's great for your students: Most students know of the novel 1984, but few know anything about the man who wrote it. The play offers more than a biopic, with its dream sequences, flashbacks and Scottish humour. The playwright Tom McNab didn't turn to writing plays until he was in his seventies.

Veronica Franco, courtesan and writer

by Dacia Maraini - in the anthology Plays by Mediterranean Women

Cast: 7m/3f

Veronica Franco, the famous Venetian courtesan, awakes to find herself in a hospice full of plague sufferers. As she recovers from the illness, mad with fever, she remembers her life, her glory days entertaining the King ¬– and her famous beauty.

Why it's great for your students: This play, based on the true story of Veronica Franco, provides a wonderful central role for a woman who defies conventions, is aware of her sexuality and able to use her intellect to be the equal of men. It is a chance for students to study a play in translation and to learn about European history from a female perspective.

The Body of a woman as a Battlefield in the Bosnian War

by Matei Visniec - in the anthology Balkan Plots

Cast: 2f

Set in a Nato medical facility on the German border where two women come together in the aftermath of the Bosnian war, there are two female protagonists: Dorra, from the former Yugoslavia, pregnant and suffering PTSD as a result of rape, and Kate, an American who has been counselling a team working to uncover mass graves, who is also on the point of a nervous collapse. The two female protagonists try to find a way forward.

Why it's great for your students: Although the cast is small, the scope of this play is large in its skewering of the nationalistic fervour behind war and the cruelty of the military strategy to encourage the rape of women by soldiers. The play allows for a discussion of the way politics can divide a nation and how victims of abuse and trauma can survive. Matei Visniec is an award-winning Romanian playwright now living in France who is the most-performed playwright in Romania after Ionesco. This play has been translated into more than a dozen languages and produced all over the world.

Dossier: Ronald Akkerman

by Suzanne Van Lohuizen - in the anthology A Touch of the Dutch

Cast: 1m/1f

The moving story of a nurse who is recording the terminal decline of an AIDS patient, Ronald Akkerman, at the height of the epidemic. The play explores the close relationship between the nurse and the young man whose life is coming to an end, showing her compassion, and quiet professionalism as she helps him to face the inevitable.

Why it's great for your students: This play is often performed internationally, and particularly on World AIDS day. It serves to remind us of another disease that caused immense suffering until a successful vaccine was found.

There are two productions on video of the play, which is a simple two-hander. These can be viewed online, allowing a director to see different ways of approaching the play – one naturalistic and the other taking a more surreal approach: https://vimeo.com/18208530 and www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7WdVE5dytY

The playwright Suzanne Van Lohuizen lives in the Netherlands and Italy. She was awarded the top award for Dutch playwrights in 1992.

Under their Influence

by Wayne Buchanan

Cast: 10m/6f

Randoulf, a young black man, is in a prison hospital, convicted of a murder he doesn't remember. His doctor unravels the incidents leading to his crime and his mental collapse, to help Randoulph remember and recover from his psychological condition. His past is enacted in scenes which can be shown on video.

Why it's great for your students: There is a large diverse cast and the opportunity to involve more students in the making of the video sequences. There is the opportunity for two black actors to play the central role as the character has a split personality. In the discovery of the events leading up to the murder, the play explores racism, sexism and the failings of the mental health system. Buchanan is a black writer and actor and this is his debut play for Kushite Theatre Company.