A moving story of one man's journey of love and loss during the horror of WWI
On the 30th anniversary of the international best-selling Sebastian Faulks’s novel, Birdsong returns to the stage in a captivating new production from Rachel Wagstaff, developed in association with the Royal British Legion, which takes audiences on one man’s journey through love and war.
It has been nearly 30 years since I first read Birdsong so my recollection of the details had faded but I do remember the vivid descriptions of love, loss and the horrors of WWI described with intensity and passion. So was looking forward to the show.
The play is presented in three acts. Act one joins the Azaire family who own a financially troubled fabric production factory in Amiens in France in the early 1900s. Patriarch, Levi Azaire, is courting English investment to help his business and so is host to Stephen Wraysford, a representative of an English factory looking to invest. We see immediately what sort of man Levi is, a controlling and abusive husband to Isabelle with no regard at all for the welfare of his workers. Young Wraysford is immediately captivated by Isabelle and more so once he fully understands her situation. A passionate affair ensues and once discovered they run away together.
Act two opens in the trenches of France, WWI has begun and Wraysford is an officer in the British Army. We learn that sometime before the outbreak of war Isabelle left Wraysford for reasons unknown to him, leaving him to drift through his military duties in mourning of a love lost.
Initially distant from his men he eventually strikes up a friendship with Sapper Jack Firebrace and his team. With the shelling and trenches of the Somme above, Faulks takes us underground to the claustrophobic tunnels and caves dug by both sides under the front lines, trying to blow up the enemy from below.
As terrifying as the war is above ground the dark, wet and potentially lethal battle underground is grim and the atmosphere cleverly captured by Faulks and Wagstaff and the imaginative set design of Richard Kent. Kent chose a minimal, surrealist set design throughout that conveyed the themes of the play perfectly.
Act two has a power that left the audience in silence. The camaraderie of the Sappers, their fear, their hopes, their sorrow and often confusion bring war to an individual level rather than the sweeping pages of a history book. Every life touched by the war, be it on the front lines or home front, is irrevocably changed.
The final act (it's a long show) sees Wraysford in France after the end of the war, searching for Isabelle and answers. Will he find peace? His hopes and dreams which carried him through the dark days coming true?
The cast performed to perfection, each character rich with personality and presence. It is a little hard to believe that James Esler who plays Wraysford is making his stage debut! He was supurb and certainly has a bright career ahead of him. Charlie Russell as Isabelle and Natalie Radmill-Quirke as her sister Jeanne had the audience in the palm of their hands from the start. Max Bowden as Firebrace and Raif Clarke as Tipper gave heart wrenching performances as Sappers - one experienced and one too young too be away from his mother.
The play does stray from the book, leaving out some details, but does an excellent job of capturing the powerful themes of love, loss and war. With so many people around the world experiencing war in 2024 it is an apt reminder of the human cost, the devastation of lives, of potential cut short and dreams lost.
The production has adult themes and nudity.
Birdsong plays at Nottingham's Theatre Royal until Saturday 19 October 2024.
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