| |
Theatre listings >
Observe The Sons Of
Ulster Marching Toward The Somme
Playwright - Frank McGuinness
Director - Giles Havergal
Set Designer - Kenny Miller
Costume Designer - Louise Borland
Lighting Designer - Gerry Jenkinson
Company - Citizens Theatre Company
Venue - Ciizens Theatre, www.citz.co.uk
0141 429 0022
119 Gorbals St from centre by subway/short walk(20 mins), bus (12/17 mins)
or taxi (10mins)
Free Preview 31 Jan
1 - 23 Feb 2002 at 7.30pm
Dates - Free Preview 31 Jan 1 - 23 Feb 2002 Tues - Sat
at 7.30pm
Run Time - 2hr 15 mins including interval
Reviewer - Thelma Good
Every portrayal real and vibrant
McGuiness's play is set in the memory of a elderly survivor and Ulsterman,
Kenneth Pyper recalling his quirky young self and companions in WW1. The
playwright from Catholic background displays a deep understanding of the
complexity of patriots, religious believers and adult men. Very movingly
structured with many humorous interludes, 8 disparate Ulster Protestants
come to be soulmates and supporters of one another. Starting in 1915 they
arrive at their makeshift training camp by the end of the play about a
year later, all miraculously still alive, they prepare to go over the
top at the Somme.
Giles Havergal's direction of his highly accomplished cast of 9* never
misses with fine pacing and highlighting of the soldiers' friendships
and shifts of allegiances. They're fighting in a foreign land whilst in
Ireland its inhabitants north and south threaten the British Empire. Imaginatively
Kenny Miller's set, with overturned chairs on and a Druid sculpture and
a Irish cross thrusting through the planking of the trenches, sets the
play in a metaphysical no-man's-land, freeing the text to resonate with
conflicts in other places at other times. Also marvellously handled by
actors, director and playwright is the deep, unspoken love a man can have
for another man.
The mainly Scottish cast bring out all the extraordinary range of this
play with every portrayal real and vibrant, and fine range of Northern
Irish accents both rural and urban. Illuminating only the Irish problem
but Humanity's, it is also celebratory of the strengths of men, endearing
in its lighter moments where you glimpse the more carefree lives they
did not have.
© Thelma Good 1 February 2002
* Old Pyper - Philip Gaudin, Young Pyper - Stephen Cavanagh,
David Craig - Brian Ferguson, John Millen - Martin McCardie,
William Moore - Malcolm Shields, Christopher Roulston - Tam
Dean Burn, Martin Crawford - David Ireland, George Anderson
- Stewart Porter and Nat Mcllwaine - John Kielty
Theatre listings >>
|
|
