HUMAN CANNON

The National Theatre cancelled the Bryceland Human Cannon project, and Bond has not given permission for it to be professionally produced since, despite requests from both the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National itself (Peter Hall changed his mind and offered Bond the chance to stage it with Vanessa Redgrave in the lead. Bond declined). The play was eventually given its first showing in 1986 by an amateur company, Quantum Theatre, in Manchester.

The central protagonist of Human Cannon, the one Bryceland would have played, is Agustina, a Spanish peasant woman. She is based loosely on a historical character who was immortalized by Goya in one of his Disasters of War etchings. Bond transposes the story from its nineteenth-century origins to the time of the Spanish Civil War (once more juxtaposing two historical periods for those who know the Goya original) making the enemy against whom Agustina fights the Fascists of Franco's army. Like the historical Agustina, who fired the cannon to defend her city against Napoleon's invaders, Bond's Agustina becomes a hero of the resistance. As the troops occupy the city, she tricks a Fascist soldier into teaching her about firing the cannon he guards, then uses her daughter 's sexuality to lure him from his post so that she can fire the gun at the dedication ceremony in the munitions factory, where the Fascist leaders are gathered. As she aims the gun, she narrates, making clear her own analysis of what she is doing.