This year marks the centenary of the start of the Great War, World War 1, so the next four years will see many commemorative events. One of the first in Dunedin is the Globe Theatre's production of Journey's End, a play set in the trenches of the Western Front. Charmian Smith reports.
Anzac and Gallipoli tend to dominate New Zealanders' thoughts about World War 1 but Journey's End shows another side, the Western Front in France and Belgium, on which many New Zealanders and Australians served as well.
It opens at the Globe Theatre tonight.
Written by R. C. Sherriff (1896-1975) who had been in the trenches, was wounded at Passchendaele and received the Military Cross, it was first staged in 1928 with the young Laurence Olivier playing one of the roles.
Although originally rejected ''because it had no leading lady'', it became a theatre classic, was made into a film in 1930 and a stage revival won a Tony Award on Broadway in 2007.
The play centres around a group of officers in their dugout in March 1918, before the Germans' last offensive, according to Brian Beresford, who is directing the production.
Everybody had suffered dreadfully in 1917 with the horror of Passchendaele, among other things.
The winter had been quiet as winters were, but the spring was quiet too and the Allies wondered what was happening.
It turned out the Germans were planning an enormous offensive.
''The play is set in those few days of waiting for this with the little bits of news that come in and the suspicion that something big is going to happen. That creates enormous tension,'' he said.
''They talk about their lives before the the war, their girlfriends and wives, and that's what makes the play so psychologically devastating. It's the tension. It's palpable.''
Historian Keith Scott who in the story plays Trotter, an older officer, explains: ''The Eastern Front was finished because the Russians were out of the war.
"The Germans threw all their effort on to the Western Front. They had three and a-half million soldiers; they had 270 or something regiments against the 160 regiments of the Allies, and 133,000 officers; they had 6600 bits of artillery to fire off, which they did in five hours.
"Historians say this bombardment, while it wasn't the longest, it was the biggest conventional bombardment in the history of warfare until now.''
Beresford says although he prefers to think of the characters as a group, if there is a central figure in the play it's Stanhope, a 21-year old captain who has also won the Military Cross.
''In one sense he's the brave young man, but he's not. He's frightened as hell and he displays this in the play.''
Raleigh, an enthusiastic 18-year old who has just joined the army is eager to start fighting, though when he literally finds blood on his hands, things change.
The others include Osborne, a teacher, Trotter who loves gardening, a cook from east London, a German soldier they capture for information and several other officers and men.
Beresford describes it as a ''soft play, a gentle play - there are moments where they get angry, but it's about an awful, ghastly subject''.
Scott, who wrote Before Anzac Beyond Armistice, a history of men from Central Otago who fought in World War 1, says he can't help seeing parallels with their experience.
''My character, Trotter, talks about hearing a bird sing and it's a sign of spring and home and youth. It reminds me of reading a letter written by a St Bathans soldier of how two swallows were nesting in his dugout and how much that meant to him. The parallels are very strong.''
Some people say the war was a great leveller, but the British class system, which still exists today, is strong in the play. It was just the normal thing of the time for Sherriff, according to Beresford.
''Raleigh enjoys the company of the ordinary soldiers up on top, but for particular reasons Stanhope is annoyed with him and says: `You cannot go up and eat with them, the lower orders, the privates, because, firstly, it's not done, we have to be shown to lead.
"And secondarily' - this I like -` you are taking the food out of the ordinary soldier. We get more than they get and you are taking it from them'.''
To pass the time the men talk and play games, like earwig races round a candle on the table, he said.
''How did you get them to go? You hit them in the ribs and you spray whisky over them and they will go - all the different ways people coped and covered up what they really feel.
''Then there's the big question mark at the end - how many went back or did they all die? That's for the audience to surmise, hence the title, Journey's End. You can interpret it in many ways.''
Scott points out that cast members range in age from about 18 to people in their 60s. Because of this there are many different relationships and thoughts about the war.
''The younger cast have no direct experience of war. They are too young for Vietnam. Their parents were involved in Vietnam; ours were in World War 2. When we talk about the war we mean the Second World War, but the young boys ask which one?'' Scott said.
Beresford says: ''They don't know when the First World War was and it's curious that people don't, but why should they? It's 100 years ago. When I was their age, 19 in 1958 and when I looked back 100 years it was the Crimean War and what did I know about the Crimean War?''
However, the younger actors were loving the eye-opening experience of playing someone who is their age but in a completely different situation. It has stimulated them to find out more about the war and the class system, he said.
Beresford and Scott, both aged over 60, say they are the last generation to have had direct contact with people who were involved in World War 1.
Beresford's grandfather was in the war but he was lucky to be wounded.
''My mum's brother, my uncle - I never knew him - he went off at 17 and when the first lot went to the front he was one of the first ones killed. My mother often spoke about him with great affection. She was only 8 when he died, just short of his 18th birthday,'' he said.
Scott knew his Uncle Jack who had fought at Gallipoli and who died when Scott was 15. However, another uncle, Bob, was killed in the spring offensive in 1918.
''I can't help thinking we are almost at the end of that personal connection. I think that is why this play is special. It gives us the opportunity to pay our tribute,'' he said.
See it
Journey's End, by R. C. Sherriff, opens at the Globe Theatre, 104 London St, Dunedin tonight and runs until March 1.
Directed by Brian Beresford, it features Matthew Scadden, Dale Neill, Keith Scott, Reuben Hilder, Andrew Brinsley-Pirie, Dean Alan Jones, Brook Bray, Oscar Macdonald, Warren Chambers, Matt Foster and Miguel Nitis.
