Powerful Drama

I didn't set out to do a theatre blip today after yesterday, but the play I saw moved me so much that I wanted to share my experience with everyone. I went to the New Theatre, Cardiff today to see Journey's End a play set in the trenches of World War One.

The play has a small cast and only one set, but it has powerful drama and great acting. In essence the story is all about officers in World War One about to face a German onslaught, and you see how war has affected each person individually. Whilst every character deals with the brutality of war in their own individual way, what struck me though was that deep down they were all the same, they were scared and sick of the sight of war and death. Everyone dealt with it differently; you saw Lieutenant Hibbert emotionally broken, you saw Lieutenant Trotter deal with it by making jokes of the situation, and Captain Stanhope dealt with it in the solace of a whisky bottle.

The ending to the play is nothing short of heart breaking, it was so moving that a number of people in the audience were crying and I must admit to fighting back the tears myself. We must never forget the sacrifices that soldiers make in the name of freedom, we can only imagine the horrors they go through physically and mentally and even then it probably doesn't come anywhere near.

The play is not anti war as you might think, and the back story behind the origins of the play itself is full of interesting twists and turns, I for one am glad that I have been able to see it.