|
Preview by Paul Nelson
TWO'S Company and Pleasance London present Forgotten
Voices From the Great War, three short plays from and about
the First World War which are to be staged in a new season at
The Pleasance.
'D' Company, Brigade Exchange and Black 'Ell headline
the first part of a gripping new season of plays about and written
during the First World War, which will open at the Pleasance Theatre
on October 16 at 6.30pm.
Although the poetry of the Great War is celebrated and widely
known, the plays of the era are almost all completely forgotten.
In an extensive research period, Graham Cowley, producer for
the production companies Two's Company and Out of Joint, managed
to find several plays, long out of print and not performed for
decades, which are as passionate, authentic and direct as the
work of the best of modern playwrights.
This thrilling and unusual body of work consists of three different
stories about soldiers, all performed in one evening.
'D' Company, by Miles Malleson, is set in a barracks
in Malta in the first two months of the Great War, where a fresh-faced
territorial battalion is waiting for orders to move. News starts
to trickle back that even then the fighting is harder than expected.
|
 |
Brigade Exchange, by Ernst Johannsen, is a view from the
other side, and towards the end of the War telephone operators
in a dug-out in the German trenches are desperately trying to
keep communications open in the face of a heavy Allied attack.
Black 'Ell, also by Miles Malleson, begins with a family
at home, anxiously waiting for their son, decorated for bravery,
to come home. He returns, but not as they expect to see him.
When first produced in the 1920s, Brigade Exchange was
known as 'the German Journey's End'. When 'D' Company
and Black 'Ell were first published in 1916, all copies
were seized by the police.
Miles Malleson was a well-known West End actor and distinguished
writer. In the fifties, he wrote adaptations of Moliere plays
in some of which he starred, he also became well known as a character
actor in British film such as Kind Hearts and Coronets,
but served in the army as a young man.
His plays are based on his war experiences. G.W. Pabst's film,
Westfront 1918, was based on Ernst Johannsen's novel Vier
von der Inafanterie.
This season will continue in the autumn of 2004 with plays about
recruiting officers and conscientious objectors as well as soldiers;
plays set in Russia, Ireland, Yorkshire and Flanders; plays about
women munitions workers as well as wives and mothers; and
plays which highlight the contradictory attitudes of those at
the Front and those at home.
Two's Company and Pleasance London present: Forgotten Voices
From The Great War 14 October 14 to November 2. Tuesday
Saturdays: 'D' Company at 6.30pm, Brigade Exchange and Black 'Ell
at 7.45pm. Sundays: 'D' Company at 3.30pm, Brigade Exchange and
Black 'Ell at 4.45pm. Directed by Tricia Thorns (Black 'Ell &
Brigade Exchange) and Ian Talbot ('D' Company) Designed by Christopher
Richardson.
Prices: 'D' Company: £6 (£4 concs), Brigade Exchange
and Black 'Ell £10 (£7.50 concs). All three in one
evening: £14 (£10 concs). Rehearsed Readings are free.
Tickets 020 7609 1800.
|
