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Not About Heroes - the friendship of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon - July 2000
The play was set against background of World War One. Performances were
in July 2000 in Buxton and could be seen along with A View From The
Bridge at the Edinburgh Festival in August 2000.
Following review was kindly provided by Colin Snell, Artistic Director
for In yer space, the critically acclaimed theatre group, made up of
students past and present from Arnold School.
It was at Craiglockhart War Hospital for Nervous Disorders outside
Edinburgh that Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon were first brought
together.
Stephen MacDonald's brilliant play - set against the background of the
First World War - traces the deep and emotional friendship that was to
have a profound effect on Wilfred Owen both as a poet and a man and
Siegfried Sassoon's championing, after Owen's untimely death, of the
man he considered a poetic genius.
Picture above shows Jonas as Wilfred Owen....Jonas had just been
offered a place to study acting at RADA. Matthew Bannister played
Sasoon.
Fringe Review July 2000
In the dark walled and packed space of
the Pauper's pit there is being played a poignant piece about
friendship, poetry and war, and the pity of war, as one of the
protaganists memorably put it.
Stephen MacDonalds Not About Heroes, set against the background of the
first world war traces the friendship of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried
Sassoon from their meeting in 1917 at Craighlockhart War Hospital for
Nervous Disorders, where Owen was recovering from shell shock and
Sassoon was in effect being kept under wraps to prevent him from
speaking out publicly against the war.
It was a friendship here portrayed as grounded in shared experience and
in poetry as the expression of truth, above all the truths of war known
to those who fought it, pitted against the militaristic patriotism of
those who knew nothing of the agonies of the Front. The author uses the
poems and letters of both men, and the memoirs Sassoon survived to
write, so that there is a strong sense of the men's own personalities.
Above all, we see Wilfred Owen growing into the full power of his
passion for poetry and truthfulness, while we know always that he is
not going to survive, that his Anthem for Doomed Youth is for himself
as well. We see the balance between the two tip from Owen, the
desperately shy hero worshipper of Sassoon, the established writer and
war hero, to Owen's increasing self confidence and Sassoon's
acknowledgment and promotion of his friends superior genius. If their
friendship was not truly like this, we are convinced that it was.
This excellent play is powerfully and movingly done. The director Colin
Snell has an outstanding track record with this school-based company,
and here adds to their joint reputation. The use of two such young
actors, Jonas Armstrong as Owen and Matthew Bannister as Sassoon, has
an immediate impact, a forcible reminder of the tragedy of young lives
being dislocated and ended before they were well begun. The actors are
well cast, capable and fully convincing [as the timid and selfdoubting
Owen, Jonas seems able to blush at will]. There was total silence after
Act 1, applause seeming completely innappropriate, a measure of how
both play and actors gripped and moved us. At the end the capacity
audience made up for this omission.
This is a play and a production to be seen. Make the most of your
chance and get to it, before it moves on elsewhere to well-deserved
enthusiasm.
U.B
City Life 19th - 21st July 2000
Stephen MacDonalds First World War Drama Heroes.
It follows the slowly burgeoning friendship between poets Siegfried
Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, whilst patients at the Craiglockhart War
Hospital for Nervous Disorders. The material may already be
familiar to those who have read Pat Barker's brilliant Regeneration;
but whereas Barker's novel was essentially an ensemble piece, here Owen
and Sassoon take centre stage. It's a small, elliptical work, and not a
great deal happens; Owen writes some poems, Sassoon criticises them.
But the devil is in the details, and McDonald renders the war backdrop
with needle point precision, bravely resisting the temptation for
hollow gestures and agit-prop sloganeering.
Snell has always elicited sensitive performances from his actors, and
Jonas Armstrong and Matthew Bannister don't let him down. At a higher
profile venue, Heroes would be a sure fire bet for a clutch of
Manchester Theatre Awards; tucked away at the Buxton Festival, it's a
small treasure waiting to be discovered.
Steve Timms
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