KEY POINTS:
Bess Walder and Beth Cummings' extraordinary tale of how they spent 19 hours clinging to an upturned lifeboat in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean after the sinking of the ship The City of Benares during World War II in 1940 is so compelling, Steven Spielberg contemplated adapting it into a Hollywood blockbuster.
However, while the life-long friends turned down the legendary director, they gave permission for Edinburgh children's theatre company Catherine Wheels to transform their remarkable experience into the two-person play Lifeboat.
"Just before we approached Bess and Beth, Steven Spielberg's production company had spoken to them," says Catherine Wheels' founder and Lifeboat director Gill Robertson. "But Beth said no, perhaps because Titanic had just come out and she thought it was terrible."
Bess and Beth first came to Robertson's attention when she read a newspaper article about how the then-teenagers originally met on the ill-fated passenger liner, which was transporting 90 young evacuees to Canada. Only 11 survived the German torpedo attack.
"It talked about what happened to them after The City of Benares sank, how they were on the lifeboat," says Robertson. "Bess ended up marrying Beth's brother, Jeff, and they have been good friends ever since.
"I read it, thought what an incredible story and then put it in the back of my head because I thought it would be impossible to stage. Catherine Wheels is a small company and I didn't think we had the resources to tell what I thought was a big story and have lots of large effects in it such as the boat sinking and hanging on to the lifeboat.
"But the story never went away and I ended up speaking about it to the writer Nicola McCartney, and from that we began to develop it. The production is quite simple and it relies a lot on the imagination of the audience in the way that the kitchen table becomes a lifeboat."
Robertson and McCartney visited Bess in London but they originally spoke to Beth, who was more reluctant to revisit her harrowing ordeal.
"If Bess had met Nicola and myself and not gone on with us or didn't trust us to tell the story, she would not have let us do it," says Robertson.
"But we spent the weekend with her and Jeff and we went away with bits of her jewellery and had lots of pear wine. But the first script was too one-sided so we knew we had to get in touch with Beth." The Liverpudlian's account differed significantly from that of her London-born friend.
"They were both about the same age and had similar names but they come from different backgrounds and have very different attitudes to what happened," says Robertson.
"Bess very much wanted to go abroad and was excited about going to Canada.
"She had no fears and no apprehension, while Beth's two brothers had gone to war and her mum was alone so she wanted to stay with her. I don't think the whole sense of danger had hit home to Bess, but Beth was right in the heart of the war and her parents knew it was very dangerous."
Robertson's sister, Suzanne, has played Bess since Lifeboat's inaugural season in Glasgow in 2002, while Isabelle Joss (Beth) joined the production shortly afterwards.
"Having two actors take on all the roles really works for me and it really works for young people as well because it's exciting," says Robertson.
"In a way, it is quite raw theatre, it's very physical and visual and because the story jumps backwards and forwards in time, you have really got to concentrate on what's happening."
Suzanne will play Bess for the last time when Lifeboat heads to Wellington later this month, where it will be staged as part of the New Zealand Festival of the Arts. "Every time we do it, we meet people who were involved or had family members who were caught up in it or are linked in some way," says Robertson.
"Once you have those connections, you remember how special the story is. New Zealand was one of the overseas destinations for evacuees during the war and so there may be audience members who see it in Wellington who were evacuees at the time."
PERFORMANCE
What: Lifeboat, with the Catherine Wheels Theatre Company
Where and when: Expressions Theatre, Upper Hutt, February 23; Soundings Theatre, Te Papa, Wellington, February 26 & March 1; Kuranui College, Greytown, March 3; Little Theatre, Lower Hutt, March 8
