Murder of Dunedin doctor basis for play
A play about the killing of a Dunedin Hospital doctor by a house surgeon from Riverton will open at the SIT CentreStage theatre tomorrow.
My Heart is Bathed in Blood – written by Michelanne Forster in 2006 – is based on the 1954 murder trial of Riverton woman Dr Senga Whittingham, then 27, who was a house surgeon at Dunedin Hospital.
SIT school of dramatic arts director Fiona Forrest said she chose the play about Dr Whittingham shooting her lover, Dr Bill Saunders, also 27, in December 1953, because it had so much relevance to Southland and because of her own background as a nurse at Dunedin Hospital.
She said she understood how such an incident would have happened, with relationships between doctors living and working close together being common.
Dr Whittingham’s
engage-
My Heart is Bathed in Blood. ment to Dr Saunders ended months before the incident, following a miscarriage. One evening, at a party for the hospital doctors, she followed him to a bathroom in the house surgeons’ quarters of the hospital, where he was later found dead from a gunshot wound.
During the trial, Dr Whittingham said it had been her intention to only scare Dr Saunders and the gun had gone off accidentally.
She was sentenced to three years’ jail and later left New Zealand for Australia.
Forrest said she discovered the play earlier in the year on a trip to Wellington, and thought it would work well as a graduate production for the SIT School of Dramatic Arts.
Both Natasha Boon, who plays Dr Whittingham, and Joshua Harris, who plays Dr Saunders, come from nursing families and have spent time walking the corridors of Dunedin and Southland hospitals, which they found useful while envisioning the world their characters were living in.
‘‘Senga was a very driven woman; she came from Riverton and she created a life for herself that she held on to very tightly,’’ Boon said. ‘‘I certainly feel for her.’’
Harris described his character as a hotshot doctor who was under a lot of stress.
‘‘I think he liked the thrill of the chase and he saw her as brilliant. But I don’t think he was as cold and callous as some people thought, he just had a lot on his shoulders.’’
My Heart is Bathed in Blood