WHAT THE WOMEN DID: Forgotten Voices from the Great War. To 9 October.

London

WHAT THE WOMEN DID (Forgotten Voices from the Great War):
Luck of War by Gwen John
Handmaidens of Death by Herbert Tremaine (Mrs Deuchar)
The Old Lady Shows Her Medals by J.M. Barrie

Southwark Playhouse 62 Southwark Bridge Road SE1 0AT To 9 October 2004
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Sat 3pm
Runs 2hr 20min Two intervals

TICKETS: 020 7620 3494
ww.southwarkplayhouse.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 27 September

Voices that are well worth hearing.Two's Company made invaluable re-discoveries of Great War drama last year at London's Pleasance Theatre, with its programme of short plays from either side of the trenches; plays matching the intensity and reality of First World War poetry. This new collection casts intriguing, and in two cases at least, devastating light on how it was for women.

The umbrella title might have been What the Women Felt', yet this is no mushy stew of loved ones dead and grieved over. There's hard analysis here. In Gwen John's Luck of War Ann has settled down to life with a new husband older, steady, celebrating 8 years without alcohol - when her first husband, missing in action, arrives home. The play's northern dialect (in script and performance) is stronger on vocabulary than speech rhythms, the dramatic situation's stated rather than explored, but the impact on children of different ages is vivid.

Handmaidens of Death (a splendidly guignol title) catches the unguarded, frank expression of young women itching for men, angry at those with a missing soldier-husband who take another man (like Ann in Gwen John's play) when there are so few to go round. And romantic notions about the class divide eroding in a general war-effort, as young ladies work alongside factory girls on munitions, is exploded. (The female gentry too want men; one's ready to claim her black armband is for a boyfriend rather than her brother).

But it's the second scene, played in creepy near-dark by the able cast of Tricia Thorns' finely modulated production, which gives the drama its edge and moral force. Easy talk about sending their names wrapped up in a shell they're making to fire at Germans leads the girls to a strange meeting with soldiers (seen mainly only by their burning cigarette-ends) who, like grim Don Juan statues, have taken up the ironic invitations.

It's a play that, in 1919, bravely asserted common humanity. So, in a different way, does the moving J.M. Barrie piece, splendidly played by Jennifer Piercey and Martin Ledwith as fake parent and offspring who reach a slow, brief attachment.

Luck of War
Amos Crispin: Jeffrey Perry
Ann: Clare Barrett
Maud Hemingway: Katerina Jennings/Megan Willis
Neighbour: Pat McFadden
George Hemingway: Martin Ledwith
Victor Hemingway: Hugo Jennings/Fred Willis

Director: Tricia Thorns
Designer/Costume: Jon Bausor
Lighting: David Lawrence
Sound: Adrienne Quartly

Handmaidens of Death
Jane Herring: Emma Holdnall
Gertrude Sutch: Abigail Langham
Violet Tierney: Pat McFadden
Mrs Herring: Jennifer Piercey
Blanche Dryver: Emma Callander
Millie Estridge: Annette McLaughlin
Clara Russell: Clare Barrett
Soldiers: Jeffrey Perry, Sean Chapman, Martin Ledwith, Michael Everhard, Callum Walker

Director: Tricia Thorns
Designer/Costume: Jon Bausor
Lighting: David Lawrence
Sound: Adrienne Quartly

The Old Lady Shows Her Medals
Mrs Dowey: Jennifer Piercey
Mrs Mickleham: Emma Callander
Mrs Haggerty: Abigail Langham
Mrs Tully: Annette McLaughlin
Rev Wilkinson: Jeffrey Perry
Private Dowey: Martin Ledwith

Director: Ian Talbot
Designer/Costume: Jon Bausor
Lighting: David Lawrence
Sound: Adrienne Quartly

2004-09-28 10:48:01