AustLit

In contrast to other war-related plays written and staged in Australia between 1914 and 1918, Reveille is concerned not with the situations and events overseas but in the obstacles facing Australia's falling enlistment. Most of the scenes are played out in the living room of Hazel Glen, a wheat farm located in the fictional district of Happy Valley and owned by the 'somewhat eccentric Australian farmer' John Westwood (Age 9 August 1917, p11). The action, which also takes place over one day, sees Smith depict 'a different kind of heroism through the story of a young man's battle to enlist despite opposition' (Cullen p54).

The protagonist, Joe Pemberton, is encouraged to enlist by a visiting recruitment sergeant but his uncle (Westwood) opposes him on the issue and uses a variety of tactics, including blackmail, to try and prevent his nephew from joining the war effort. Complicating matters is his love for the local school mistress, Nell Atherton, who has been avoiding him because he hasn't enlisted. When her father reappears after several years absence following a fraud scandal Joe' attempt to defy his uncle seem slim. The misunderstanding over the scandal is resolved, however, and Westwood's blackmail hold over Joe is subsequently rendered useless. A comic subplot involves the attempt by one character to try and pass the enlistment physical.

In her examination of the play Susan Cullen suggests that the theme of a farmer not wanting his kin to go to war because he is needed on the farm reflected the belief that country people were unwilling to let labour go' (p54). She further notes, too, that Smith appears to have deliberately avoided discussing the war itself, perhaps because Australians had become much more aware of the reality of war and were increasingly uninterested in fictional heroics.