Futility lies at the heart of Frank McGuinness’ story of the 36th (Ulster) Division - a unit of Irish Loyalist First World War soldiers, who were generally members of the fledgling Ulster Volunteer Force.
Futility in war, obviously, but also a futility in belief, both in yourself and in the frankly ridiculous nature of sectarian violence - or any violence which is based around people’s differences. Set amongst the horror and the scale of the Somme, the battle with fellow Irishmen, just because they worship in a different way, seems almost the definition of futility.
But McGuinness has also managed to capture the domestic tragedy that lies across the horror and scale of WWI. More than 1.3 million people were killed and wounded in the first four hours of the Somme - the 36th list a third of its 15,000 men in the first few days. These were boys and men who knew each other, who grew up near each other and who shared friends and family.
It’s a solid production. McGuinness’ writing and characterisation is sure-footed and John Dove’s direction clears a path for the characters to walk. Stage award-winner Richard Dormer brings a manic anxiety to Kenneth Pyper, the only survivor of what is to come. All the men are struggling with doubt - doubt about what it is to be a man, to be an Ulsterman. Pyper is fighting himself - the expectations of his parents, his homosexuality. These whirl around Dormer in a maelstrom.
“It’s always the meshuge ones that survive,” said one elderly man as he left the auditorium, using the Yiddish word for crazy.
But in WWI everyone was a meshugener, but they were also a mensh - an honorable man. And McGuinness successfully draws his idiosyncratic band of brothers together.
This is a play in which the unit of men are the main character, rather than the individuals therein. That’s how a play about soldiers in a war should be. The magnificent opening to Act II, in which the men’s duologues interweave into an existential tract about belief - both in the self and outside - reinforces this.
Production information can change over the run of the show.
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