Word: playwrights
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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When it was first staged in London (starring Laurence Olivier and directed by James Whale, who went off to Hollywood and gave us Frankenstein), Journey's End was hailed as an antiwar statement. The playwright, who served in France during the war (and went on to write films like The Invisible Man and Goodbye, Mr. Chips), always disputed that assessment. In fact, seen today in the absolutely riveting new production directed by David Grindley (based on his much acclaimed London revival of 2004), in the midst of another national debate about another war, the play is more poignantly and powerfully...
...Really, I'm trying to be Ibsen. That's my secret hope: that I could somehow turn into [the playwright Henrik] Ibsen. There are things happening all the time to real people. You don't have to enact them or write them. I'm trying to make a play, not an educational device...
...condescension or satire. Yes, the young commander of the company, the competent, hard-drinking Stanhope (Hugh Dancy, the Brit heartthrob who's a standout in a cast of mostly Americans), lets slip a few bitterly sarcastic words about the general who has ordered the unnecessary raid. But no antiwar playwright could have written the delicate scene in which Stanhope tries to buck up, without shaming, a cowardly officer who is faking illness to avoid battle: "Supposing the worst happened - supposing we were knocked right out. Think of all the chaps who've gone already. It can't be very lonely...
...waiting. The men are gone for just three minutes. When they return, everything has changed. When it was first staged in London (starring Laurence Olivier and directed by James Whale, who went off to Hollywood and gave us Frankenstein), Journey's End was hailed as an antiwar statement. The playwright, who served in France during the war (and went on to write films like The Invisible Man and Goodbye, Mr. Chips), always disputed that assessment. In fact, seen today in the absolutely riveting new production directed by David Grindley (based on his much acclaimed London revival...
...Later, inside the house, Delight picks up a book he is reading for school, The Gods Are Not to Blame by Nigerian playwright Ola Rotimi, which transplants Sophocles' Oedipus Rex to Africa. He talks about his school and having to go to mass every day. He pronounces Catholic Cad-lick in his wonderful, treacle-thick Ghanaian English. There is a small table in the corner with a stove sitting on it. Pots and pans stack up under chairs that line the walls and on the shelves of a bureau that also holds a tiny color television. There is a small...