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By Miriam Hill David Morris interrupted his one-man show at Colonel Gray High School Oct. 26 because someone in the audience was dozing. "Are you asleep?" the man dressed in old-fashioned army garb screamed at the student. "Iıd love to take you back in a time machine to the First World War and show you what itıs really like to be tired. "I'm up here busting my ass... I won't tell you what I've done to some of my men who fell asleep when I was talking to them." Morris is an actor based in Newmarket, Ont., who wrote and performs Canadian Infantry Soldier -- First World War, to high school students across the country. The stage in the Colonel Gray lecture theatre, furnished with a typical melamine-topped school table and a piano shoved far over to one side, was transformed as Morris's monologue shifted scenes. At one point it became a ship, at another, the battlefield at Vimy Ridge. Morris looked about 35 years old, short in stature, with close-cropped dark hair. He wasted no time. Once students were seated, Morris launched into his fast-paced, energetic performance, focused on presenting war as it really was. His only props were his uniform, a heavy long army coat, pack sacks and a bayonet. The expressive Morris held most of the audience captive with his words. The script was based upon extensive interviews he conducted with five veterans of the Great War, and Morris pulled no punches. In character, he spoke of the trip to Europe by ship, on what he and his colleagues dubbed the HMCS Vomit, because "if you wasn't throwing up from seasickness, eh, you was sick from watching someone else be sick." The students' attention was held as Morris described the practice of soldiers urinating on their hankerchieves and stuffing them in their mouths, as the ammonia found in urine was the only way to combat German chlorine gas attacks."Who here wouldn't do that?" Morris asked. Many hands were raised. He proceeded to describe what it's like to die from inhaling chlorine. You cough for about 20 minutes, he said, bringing up little bits of your lungs with each hack. "Now who wouldn't do this?" Morris said, waving the hanky in front of his groin. The graphic detail seemed to hit home with the teenaged audience. Sharlene Kelly, a 15-year-old Grade 10 student, appreciated Morris's honesty. "He didn't hold back," she said. Between the two shows at Colonel Gray, Morris sat panting on the edge of the stage, drinking water from a tin cup. His voice sounded tired, but his passion was not dampened. The first 15 minutes of the movie Saving Private Ryan, he said, chatting with three students, represents the first time Hollywood has portrayed war as it really is. "The rest of the movie is American propaganda," he said, with a dismissive flick of his wrist. Morris's goal is to expose students to the harsh realities of war and to recognize they might be fighting in the next one. "Yes, even you ladies too," he later told the assembled crowd. "Equal rights is a double-edged sword." Ryan Abdallah, 16, thought the show was "awesome." He was most impressed after the monologue when Morris explained the script was factually accurate. "It was real," an awed Abdallah said. "I'll bet most of the people in here thought it was just a presentation." Abdallah's father fought in Lebanon for eight years, he said, and Morris's monologue reinforced the adage that war brings nothing good at all. Morris said for many years veterans were not comfortable telling war stories, but near the end of their lives, many want to unload some of the memories, good and bad. He thinks it may be a form of therapy. He remembers once, after performing his monologue, a veteran approached him saying it was a mistake for Morris to be mentioning killing Germans with bayonets. Morris wondered what that mistake was and the veteran asked him, "Don't you see them all around?" Apparently, Morris said, his script was so true-to-life, the man was convinced all the Germans he'd killed with his bayonet were floating around, looking down on him. "He didn't kill just one either," Morris continued. "He was talking about all the faces he saw floating around." It made Morris feel uncomfortable, but he thinks listening to veterans is important. "See, now is the time to talk to these boys. They're dying and there's very little time." Morris has performed his powerful play to over 250,000 high school students. This was his second trip to P.E.I. Morris came to P.E.I. as a prelude to national Veterans' Week (Nov. 5-11), and was funded on his five-day visit by the P.E.I. Department of Education, Veterans Affairs Canada and the Provincial Command of the Royal Canadian Legion. Remembrance Day marks the 80th anniversary of the end of the First World War -- the War to End All Wars. Morris is doing his best to ensure those who haven't experienced conflict know what real, unglamourized war is like.
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