Rising at 6am on a dark January morning to travel to Vimy, north France, was certainly an eye-opening experience.
It was to be a tour of the locations that had inspired the monumental play by R. C. Sherriff, Journey's End. From the dramatic Vimy Ridge to the awe-inspiring Notre Dame de Lorette, the sights that had such a vital impact on Sherriff's text were all explained with the aid of David Grindley, who is directing the upcoming stage production.
Brought to life in 1928 by R. C. Sherriff, Journey's End is an important play. Its insistent tension, which quietly bubbles under the surface throughout the three acts, and astonishing commentary on the human condition is, even today, movingly pertinent.
Set in the trenches of Saint-Quentin, Aisne, in 1918 before the end of the First World War, Journey's End consists of a group of British officers on the front line. The play begins with the arrival of Raleigh, an 18-year-old officer fresh out of English public school, to the besieged company, which is led by a man named Stanhope.
As the plot unfolds, we discover Raleigh knows Stanhope from his former public school days. Three years older than Raleigh, Stanhope was previously his 'hero'.
The central crux of the story is driven by the transformation that Stanhope has undergone during his time on the front line...
Stanhope, left, and Osborne in Grindley's production
Journey's End has had an enormous influence on director David Grindley.
Following its original success when it was performed in 1928 (with Laurence Olivier at the helm as Stanhope, no less), the play became a staple in theatre for some time. However, each progressive interpretation of Journey's End gradually became tired and a little uninspired.
It wasn't until Grindley successfully revived the play in 2004 that the production breathed a stunning new lease of life.
The production received rave reviews, ran in London for many months, went out on tour twice and even travelled to Broadway.
Now, Grindley is bringing Journey's End back to theatre-goers who wish to have a second helping. Under an entirely new cast, Journey's End will be showing at Stoke's Regent Theatre from Tuesday, March 29 to Saturday, April 2.
"It's an amazing piece and I can't seem to leave it alone," says David. "It's been such a big part of my life. With the first production we were only meant to play eight weeks - in the end we played 18 months!"
It was David's original trip to Vimy himself that inspired his re-telling of the story to such a powerful extent.
"If you look at pictures of the original production, it's quite spacious and has a theatrical feel. I was very keen to make it real. It's a play with a very real context and that's something I've researched with my designer, going out to France, visiting Vimy Ridge and other sites. We wanted to know just what Sherriff's battalion had been through."
The intense power of Journey's End lies in the fact that Sherriff himself served in the First World War.
He went to war with his local regiment as a 20-year-old subaltern. Arriving in France in September 1916, Sherriff was stationed here for ten months before he was invalided home with facial wounds received in the opening battle of Passchendaele.
The play is founded upon his experiences while fighting alongside 'C company' of the 9th Battalion of the East Surrey regiment.
Importantly, it is worth noting that this trip did not take me to where Journey's End itself is set but rather where Sherriff himself fought.
"When I first did the play I came back in an absolute blind panic that I didn't know enough about the First World War," explains David. "Fortunately I realised that I just need to know about what this group of men went through. I'm not wanting to be ignorant, but I want their knowledge to be very specific. I don't want them to know everything."
As I disembark at Vimy Ridge, the colossal effect of war is still marked across the landscape.
In March 1916 the trenches here were taken over by the British. The area had been one of aggressive mine warfare between the French and Germans, and this bombardment continued to ravage the site.
Each side continually tunnelled under enemy lines in an attempt to create underground chambers that could be filled with explosives, destroying whatever lay above them.
The ground has been utterly disfigured by the intense mine warfare. Craters litter the land; huge depressions in the earth that expose the strength of the explosions.
Craters made by shells and mines at Vimy Ridge
Gazing out across this battle-scarred scene, I can't help but feel incredibly small. How soldiers managed to stand up against this level of bombardment is baffling.
"When I was there for the first time, I really had a sense of looking out over the distorted landscape," David considers. "At the time, it would have just been mud, no greenery, desolate and completely devastated. Your senses would have to negotiate with the smallest bit of beauty: bird song, blue sky, beautiful sunlight on your face...
"The smallest things will become absolutely essential to maintaining your humanity in that hell hole."
The main impression Vimy Ridge forces upon the mind is just how all-consuming the war environment must have been; attacking the senses and playing cruel tricks on the mind.
This is demonstrated to great effect in the underground tunnels of Vimy Ridge. The chalk in the ground below made it an ideal area for tunnelling and extensive networks were constructed, eventually creating a system that extended for many miles and included headquarters, hospitals and communication centres.
These tunnel systems allowed troops to move about in safety below ground, and it was possible to accommodate 11,000 men in underground barracks. Conditions were dank, cramped and cold.
At one point while I traverse the confined tunnels, the lights are switched off. Suddenly, it is as if all that is good has been sucked out of the world in the fraction of a second; it is disorientating and, quite frankly, frightening. An unpleasant reminder of how bleak life must have been in these conditions, the descent into darkness is only temporary as the switch is quickly pressed back down and light floods the underground trench once more.
"The intimacy of the living conditions, the oppressiveness, the claustrophobia..." David Grindley struggles to convey the physical and mental challenges that the soldiers would have had to face. "The British and Germans have absolutely distorted and re-created that landscape. It is a completely different environment now than it would have been before the war."
The director feels the play is one of endurance.
"I'm very aware of seeing these characters as ordinary people. Cultural and social barriers break away. They recognise that the only people they can trust to survive is each other. This is a play about these men binding together in the light of these psychological pressures to make the best out of the situation they're in."
Trenches at Vimy Ridge
When Raleigh enters the company in Journey's End, the character Osborne warns him that he will find his childhood hero Stanhope much-changed from how he remembers. 'You know you mustn't expect to find him quite the same,' Osborne utters in one telling line of the text. 'You see, he's been out here a long time. It tells on a man - rather badly.'
As a coping mechanism, Stanhope has sought comfort in an unrelenting supply of whiskey.
"We can't imagine what it must have been like for Stanhope: all the losses he encountered, all the men that served under him and had been slain on his watch," says David.
"It's a tipping point, and only whiskey can insulate him from his experiences. It's not fear, it's just the sheer weight of responsibility that he feels for all the men serving with him."
Each individual copes with the terror of the front line in a different way.
Osborne listens. He emerges himself in other's tales, so as to direct his thoughts away from the horrors of the war.
The character Trotter tells jokes. Laughter is his medicine, a means of escaping the stark reality the soldiers find themselves in.
And then there is Hibbert; someone who finds the ordeal of war impossible to comprehend. In one of the most unnerving scenes of the play, the primitive instinct of fight or flight is tested between Stanhope and Hibbert.
"Hibbert is utterly desperate," says David. "He has no moment-by-moment diversion, so he can't find any way of mitigating his fear.
"A salient point to remember is that these are men and women, just like us, who find themselves at the front line."
As we move on to the the Notre Dame de Lorette, this becomes ever more obvious.
The Notre Dame de Lorette
The Notre Dame de Lorette is a huge ridge that, at its peak, stands at 165 metres high.
During 1914 and 1915, the French fought a series of battles in the area, known as The First, Second and Third Battles of Artois. In 1916 the British took over from the French, fighting a series of local engagements and then launching a crucial attack on the Germans during The Battle of Arras in 1917.
Now, the Notre Dame de Lorette is also the name of the site for the French National Memorial and Cemetery.
Shockingly, the cemetery contains almost 40,000 graves - half of which are unknown soldiers - and an ossuary containing the bones of those whose names were not marked.
The chapel and lighthouse tower dominate the ridge, which was one of the major objectives for both sides due to its vantage point.
Seemingly limitless lines of graves have been erected with a simple cross headstone. Even now, it is as if these soldiers killed in the war are standing to attention in strict, regimented rows, with the proud buildings acknowledging their sacrifice at the front.
40,000 graves in the cemetery at the Notre Dame de Lorette
"That concentration of the dead really affects me," comments David.
In one scene in Journey's End, Stanhope speaks of looking up at a wall of mud compacted in front of him. He sees 'the worms wandering about round the stones and roots of trees'.
"He's not just talking about worms," David says heavily. "The earth is alive. He's talking about worms going through the eye-sockets of skulls. He can see bones... the dead that's accrued over the last four years of the war. It's that kind of visceral impact that I had when I was in the cemetery for the first time."
To the rear of the cemetery is a war museum, containing the rusted artefacts of artillery and barbed wire that were used during the First World War.
"The sheer physicality," David stresses. "The metal is so heavy, so dense. If you had that exploding and any small bit hitting you, the potential damage is very difficult to come to terms with."
The kind of heavy machinery used in the First World War
The trauma that everyday men must have faced is unimaginable.
In Journey's End, the two central protagonists Stanhope and Raleigh are only 21 and 18-years-old respectively, a fact that is brutally hammered home by the young cast that performs Grindley's intense production.
"It was very important in the casting that hopefully young people will come to the show and recognise Stanhope and Raleigh are representing them," says David. "It's a moment to reflect on what you would do if you were put in their shoes."
Stripped to its core, David claims Journey's End is the story of two boys. "It's about Raleigh having a baptism of fire where he realises Stanhope is as human as everyone else. He's flawed, and not as perfect as you think he is. It's their story."
As my time in France comes to an end, I cannot help but think it is 'our' story. Journey's End is a play that speaks of camaraderie, trust and asks just what makes a 'hero'.
The tale of these two young men is a concentrated story of experience that expands from one to the many; not only the numerous brave men that fought in the First World War, but to all of us as ancestors of these great men that created our life as we know it today.
Surveying the great sea of graves at the peak of Notre Dame de Lorette, it is clear that their story needs to be told.
18-year-old Rayleigh in Grindley's production
Journey's End is showing at Stoke's Regent Theatre from Tuesday, March 29 to Saturday, April 2. To book tickets, visit www.ambassadortickets.com/stoke or call the box office on 0844 871 7649
I watched the film at the theatre today, i believe that the film was a credit to the book and sherrif himslef. The acting was outstanding and the play really took you back to war time and allowed you to empathise with the character due to the pure level of acting skills. The characters were real again for just a short time, it was a thrilling experience and was a real thrill to watch. The emotions shown by the actors were highly believable and i would recomend the play to everyone.
ReplyDeleteGlad you enjoyed the production Emily :)
ReplyDeleteI finally got to see it too last week and thought it was brilliant.