Review scheduled to appear in October's Hullfire - our University Drama Society again (a review of their show is not the place to go into the things that put me off the Society, but there are several):
The First World War was a pretty long slog, let's be honest. WWI famously should have been 'over by Christmas'. Shame then, that trench warfare forced troops into long periods of waiting with not very much to do, before sudden action.
R. C. Sheriff's play – Journey's End – demonstrates this perfectly, showing five British officers waiting for Germany's final all-or-nothing 1918 offensive. What destroyed men's nerves in the trenches was the fear in the waiting – the dread that struck while doing nothing – and a life characterised by peaks and troughs, long periods of idleness followed by brief spurts of violence. The troughs – the long, seemingly endless hours of time-wasting and hanging about, drinking or smoking or eating low-quality rations – are what the Drama Society bring to Asylum's stage.
That accuracy is both the strength and the fatal flaw of any production of this script; the long periods of apparent nothingness are unavoidable. What's pleasantly surprising is that this cast mine as much humour and lightness as possible from the script, so the desperately slow, long sections aren't as bad as they might be.
This particular production relies on the central duo of Stanhope and Osborne (no program, so actors' names are a mystery), who between them dominate the stage – Stanhope like a boiling kettle, ready to blow at a moment's notice (rather like the war itself), Osborne as a kindly uncle figure, smooth and calm. Trotter – as a common man in the officers' world – is a breath of fresh air in more ways than one.
That strength makes weakness elsewhere stand out, and this production suffers from being too slow and – therefore – long. It also has cringe-worthy speeches from a director who can be confident enough in his cast to not set the scene himself.
No comments:
Post a Comment