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Directed
by
David Grindley
Designed
by
Jonathan
Fensom
Sound
by
Gregory
Clarke
Captain
Stanhope
Brendan
Patricks
Lieutenant
Osborne
Malcolm Sinclair
2nd
Lieutenant Raleigh
Peter Sandys-Clarke
2nd
Lieutenant Hibbert
Rufus Wright
2nd
Lieutenant Trotter
Ian Burfield
Private
Mason
Paul Brightwell
Private
Albert Brown
& a private
Rob Heanley
Captain
Hardy & Sergeant Major
Charles Daish
Colonel
John Elmes
Lance
Corporal Broughton
Paul Benzing
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Duke of York's Theatre
5
Oct - 19 Feb 2005 |
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When
'Journey's End' was first
staged in 1929 it was an unexpected
success. The were no doubt
a number of reasons for its
success among them, perhaps,
the fact that the first man
to play Captain Stanhope was
the young Lawrence Olivier
but two strongly suggest
themselves. One is that a
decade had passed since the
end of the First World War,
enough time for the shock
of it to pass, enabling people
to bear to look at the experience
of it again a needful exercise
which had been delayed while
the country, bled almost white
by the massive loss of life,
regained its breath.
Sheriff's evocation of three
days in the trenches just
before the great German offensive
of March 1918 aimed a lens
at the experience, bringing
into focus courage, cowardice,
the gratuitous loss of life,
and the way the horror of
it was countered in the
case of Stanhope, glorious
schoolboy turned leader of
men, and a fine one though
dependent on alcohol for the
nerve to stick it.
It would be easy to view the
'I say old man, that's topping'
argot of the Great War's officer
class as mere caricature,
but the deadly earnest that
lies beneath the play quells
any temptations in that direction.
The cast inhabit the time
and ethos excellently, so
that the forms of speech and
the assumptions that permeate
the relationships between
the officers in their dugout
in effect, the relation
of prefect and Captain of
the Eleven to boy in the Remove
seems exactly right and
true to the circumstances.
And that in effect sums up
the strength of the production:
the cast's performance is
convincing and sustainedly
accurate, and the directorial
vision offered by David Grindley
is assured and clear; with
this subject matter too, the
play cannot fail to grip and
move, and the fact that it
does both explains why it
is having an extended run
seventy-five years after its
first staging.
The key parts are Brendan
Patricks' Captain Stanhope,
Malcolm Sinclair's Lieutenant
Osborne, and Peter Sandys-Clarke's
2nd Lieutenant Raleigh, though
Rufus Wright's 2nd Lieutenant
Hibbert is an important foil
to the others, being a man
hovering on the grey border
between shell-shock and cowardice,
and very well played. Brendan
Patricks and Malcolm Sinclair
carry the play's emotional
weight, and the relationship
between their Lieutenant Osborne
and Captain Stanhope is intriguing
half way between an uncle-nephew
and a homoerotic one.
The forms of love forged by
terrifying circumstances and
the closeness of death shimmer
under the skin here did
Sheriff himself understand
how close he came to making
this a portrait of the way
the fires of hell forge new
alloys in the connections
between one human and another?
The key lies in the letter
that Peter Sandys-Clarke's
2nd Lieutenant Raleigh sends
home after he has seen Captain
Stanhope's reliance on drink
for nerve, and the hardening
of his soul wrought by war.
'Journey's End' is fine theatre
in every department, and deserves
its success.
AC Grayling |
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