OBSERVE THE SONS OF ULSTER MARCHING TOWARDS THE SOMME. Citizens' Theatre to 2

Glasgow

OBSERVE THE SONS OF ULSTER MARCHING TOWARDS THE SOMME
by Frank McGuinness

Citizens' Theatre To 23 February 2002
Runs 2hr 10min One interval

TICKETS 0141 429 0022
Review Timothy Ramsden 9 March

Havergal's outstanding production does this great war play proud.McGuinness has written a fine play, but a tricky one. It starts deceptively simple, as recruits gather for war service, and the final section shows them as a bonded battalion going into battle. It's the central section, away from the war zone, where character pairs develop in oases of reality amid a wider void, where any production is tested. And it's here the Citizens' revival shows its mettle.

What's more, the action is seen through the memory of its one survivor, Kenneth Pyper. As an old man Philip Gaudin shows the comfortable-looking dressing-gown hardly hides the Orange rage looking back in anger. As a striking image makes clear, the death in battle of his comrades merges with the memory of a pre-fight football game; while they kick the ball about, an explosion sends them flying to the ground in a horizontal starburst.

Young Kenneth is a playful rebel from the Protestant tradition, sucked back by war. And, as Havergal makes clear, his rebellion has been sexually oriented, tied in with the homosexuality his background would keep him from expressing. Even away from home, it takes the form of facetious behaviour, but there's no denying the intensity it gives to his relationship with Brian Ferguson's David. Ferguson expertly portrays his character as an uncomplicated character innocently soaking up admiration.

At the action's centre come the gun-like sounds of the Lambeg Drum beaten in angry frustration by the Belfast Orangemen Anderson and McIlwaine. But the biggest strike in character terms comes when the secretly half-Catholic Crawford leaps on the bible-toting, text-quoting ex-preacher Roulston. He finds religious faith without blasphemy intolerable; everyone has to be implicated in earthly behaviour. Tam Dean Burn brings all his lean authority to Roulston's troubled devotion while David Ireland matches caution and destructive glee in his Crawford.

Gerry Jenkinson's lighting gradually opens up the trench ramparts of Kenny Miller's set as the Ulstermen combine Flanders with the Boyne, fated creatures seeing themselves as a divinely-selected people. In all respects, this is a thrilling, if demanding, theatre event.

Kenneth Pyper, as an old man: Philip Gaudin
Kenneth Pyper: Stephen Cavanagh
David Craig: Brian Ferguson
John Millen: Martin McArdie
William Moore: Malcolm Shields
Christopher Roulston: Tam Dean Burn
Martin Crawford: David Ireland
George Anderson: Stewart Porter
Nat McIlwaine: John Kielty

Director: Giles Havergal
Designer: Kenny Miller
Lighting: Gerry Jenkinson
Costume: Louise Borland

2002-02-14 00:33:24