Review of Eloquent Protest III
| "Paper poppies and real tears" by Nina Romain for remotegoat on 13/11/08 |  |
The Trafalgar Studios' stage is scaled down by plain black curtains, and the black floor simply decorated with scarlet paper poppy leaves, giving the studio an intimate feel of a small fringe production, rather than of its West End glitz.
If anyone had said an event about world wars would be entertaining, and in fact laugh-out-loud funny at times, you might find it hard to believe. But it isn't as serious an event as you might think, with humour - as well as heartbreaking stories of everyday life during the Blitz, including one so sad it doesn't bear repeating.
Probably the two most famous British poets to write about the First World War, Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, were quoted, including Owen's famous and graphic poem on the first world war published in 1920, "Dulce et Decorum Est" ("it is sweet and right to die for one's country"). This early poetry was contrasted with later writers like Joseph Heller, whose famous 1961 novel "Catch 22" was quoted to highlight the insanity of war.
Live music was a major part of the show, with the Manchester Lesbian & Gay Chorus doing a soulful version of "Over the Rainbow", a gospel version of Lennon's "Imagine", and, with singer Julian Littman, a cover of Costello's version of "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding?"
Actors wearing authentic army uniforms, complete with Sam Browne belts but minus replica weapons, performed vivid diary extracts written by the real-life soldiers used as "cannon fodder". The letters home were an articulate and horrifying record of how war strips soldiers of humanity, and of how quickly the death of their fellow soldiers stopped distressing them, and instead was simply accepted as part of their grisly new life.
Some of the multi-national aspects of the show, such as poet Adrian Mitchell's poem "To Whom It May Concern (Tell Me Lies about Vietnam)", may have meant a little less to a British audience than the piece on the Falklands War, but still spoke about the universality of loss.
This is an event for all those of us, myself included, born in the late 20th century onwards, who might pin a poppy on every November in no more than a polite gesture of good citizenship. The event could so easily have been melodramatic and depressing, but instead was uplifting and positive. It provoked not the easy emotion of show business, but real tears of real loss.Add your review? Have your say, add your review
Other recent reviews by Nina Romain
