So I saw Journey's End last night. First, though, I got lost in Picadilly Circus and Soho trying to find the theater, since I conveniently took the OTHER street that leads off from Picadilly Circus station, and got myself off in the comparative middle of nowhere, if you can call five blocks from Trafalgar Square the comparative middle of nowhere. Anyway. Unfortunately, the nice Middle Eastern man I asked for directions couldn't understand me, and I couldn't understand him, and I didn't quite want to duck into one of the zillions of strip clubs to ask (the horror, I know). But I eventually found my way back, got on the right street, and found my way to the Comedy Theater, which is this very nice old Victorian theater with, among other things, a fully stocked bar. Which, as this was in fact a school function, I did not partake of. The horror, I know. Among other things, the place is about as decorated and...nice as you might expect a great big Victorian theater to be, and had this awesome curtain for the stage that was this huge portrait collection of King George V and his family. Maybe it was just for the play, I dunno. In any case, it rocked.
But anyway. Journey's End. It's a World War I tragedy, which right there should pretty much tell you everything you want to know about it. Except that it's probably the single most intense play I've ever seen in my life, which probably wasn't hurt by our possession of third row seats, which is the second-best seats I've ever had for anything.
The play itself is pretty predictable. People die, there's the appropriate amount of emotional tenseness and drama, and with the wrong sort of actors, it could have gone horribly, horribly wrong. In our case, well, it didn't. The stage, for one, was set up exactly like a World War I bunker, the actors had all the right costumage, and the actors themselves were top notch, and really, really got into their roles. You could almost physically feel the emotions the characters felt, it was that good. And the sound effects...wow. I was sort of impressed during the play, but when they basically subjected us to a minute-long artillery barrage at the end...that was pretty amazing. And for the after bit, when the actors all got on stage, they were all in their uniforms, standing in front of a big Vietnam Memorial-like wall with what I presume are a small number of names of people who died in the war. And a couple of them were actually crying. Whole theater went dead silent. Then clapped like hell.
It was quite something, let me tell you.
And if we all felt what we felt, I can only imagine what an audience in 1929 would have felt. Something about like what I hear the opening of Platoon was like, maybe, with lots of very emotional veterans. Dunno.
I do know, though, that the British, or at least Londoners, are much closer to World War I in particular than we can imagine. Everywhere you go, there are little memorials to the men who fought and died in the war. Every church, every square, every park seems to have some little thing. I've got pictures of a few. And the funny thing is that no other war, not even the Second World War, seems to get that kind of treatment. There are a few here and there, but not that many. I find that slightly odd.
On a much, much lighter note, both Further Down the Spiral and the Royal Philharmonic's U2 covers are pretty good, the one moreso than the other, but both nice.
Posted by Dwip at April 14, 2004 10:15 AMWow.
Posted by: Regina at April 14, 2004 4:54 PM