As I am sure you are aware, this year marks the centenary of
the outbreak of the First World War. It is often called a modern war as old
warfare methods were phased out in favour of machine guns, tanks and chemical
weapons. However, it was also a modern war in the way the horrors of the
trenches were communicated to the people back home. Men whose talents and skills
lay in the use of words and sentences to invoke emotional responses were
drafted into a terrible and tragic war, which many would come to see as
pointless as they battled for years, losing millions of lives, for a few feet
of no-man’s land. Their response was to write and thus began the era of the war
poets.
“Not about heroes” is a glimpse into the lives of two of
these men from the point when they meet in the Craiglockhart War Hospital during the war to the
survivor’s later remembrance of the younger man, who was struck down just one
week before armistice. Progress Theatre’s production, directed by Steph Dewar,
is sparsely staged to great effect. The great and established poet, Siegfried
Sassoon (Gareth Saunders) owns the right side of the stage, with an opulent desk
and paraphernalia whilst the timid newcomer Wilfred Owen (Owen Goode) has a
utilitarian desk and chair on the left of the stage. Behind Sassoon is a blank
space on which hints of pleasant outdoor scenes are projected when required (such
as the pastoral garden of Sassoon’s convalescent home). Behind the doomed Owen
is the unmistakable description of a trench, equipped with a ladder for the
inevitable “going over the top”.
You could describe this as a two-hander play focusing on the
relationship between the two men, as Sassoon realises Owen’s potential and helps
him to get his work published but I think that would be selling it short. The
story is told through Sassoon’s narration, both characters dictation of letters
either to each other or in Owen’s case to his mother and intimate conversations.
What I really enjoyed about this production was the characterisation portrayed by
both actors which was maintained throughout the shifts from direct dialogue to
narration and letter reading.
Sassoon is grandiose from the start and relishes reciting
his own and other worthy poets work. This is a role well suited to Gareth
Saunders’ style as he recites the work of Shelley, Owen and himself with timbre
and gravitas. However, as the war goes on and he re-engages with it, he loses
some of his ‘great man’ mask showing Owen (and us) a vulnerability which begs
for our pity. Owen’s journey compliments Sassoon’s as the power shifts from the
latter to the former. In his first meeting with Sassoon he is a shy, stuttering
young man bowed under the weight of the label “coward”, played truthfully by
Owen Goode who captures his young man’s nervous deprecation well. Through the
praise and belief bestowed upon him by Sassoon and the friendship they develop,
Owen finds his voice in both his poetry and speech, recovering enough to be
sent back to the front line. It is in the second act of the play that we really
start to see Owen’s mischievous sense of humour.
The setting of this play, the Great War, and the subject,
the tragic death of a talented young man (and many others) just realising his
potential may not seem conducive to laughter. However, this is not a heavy
handed lecture on the fruitlessness of war. It has light moments and humour
sprinkled throughout which for the most part was handled well by the cast and
director, (for me, the running joke of Owen disappearing while Sassoon was
talking to him seemed a little underdeveloped, leaving Owen running back and
forth seemingly without purpose). The light relief of humour is a welcome
balance to the heavy topic and awful beauty of the poems.
In this centenary year, when there are no survivors of the
trenches left to tell us of this dark time in our recent history, I urge you to
watch this production of “Not About Heroes” which encourages us to question the
meaning of true courage in a world inherently unjust.
