It’s very rare that you see a three hour play at the theatre where the whole audience is silent and spellbound for the entire duration.
Charlie Russell as Isabelle Azaire and James Esler as Stephen Wraysford in Birdsong | Photo © Pamela Raith
Such is the power and clarity of the story-telling, acting and staging of Original Theatre’s production of Birdsong, however, that programmes are left un-thumbed as the audience is held hypnotised while those three hours fly by.
Sebastian Faulks’ epic novel of love, war, grief and healing is over 30 years old, and has since found life as a celebrated TV drama with Eddie Redmayne.
The stage adaptation by Rachel Wagstaff brings out the immediacy and rawness of the book, changing and all-but-removing the 1970s plotline of the granddaughter looking back, to allow full focus on the period just before, during and after the World War One, and the way lives and families were forever torn apart and destroyed.
English protagonist Stephen Wraysford goes to stay at the Amiens home of factory owner Rene Azaire, and find that he is abusing his many workers there.
In the process, Wraysford falls in love with Azaire’s neglected young wife Isabelle, who is torn between staying with the financial security of her family life or being with a man who loves and respects her. But just as things appear to be going well for the young lovers, the Great War begins.
Act One allows us to fully invest in these characters in the languorous safety of a comfortable French home, before Act Two hauls us straight into the claustrophobic insanity of the trenches, and Act Three spits out the war’s few survivors to try and make sense of what remains of their lives.
Director Alastair Whatley delivers a production of impeccable precision of emotion, timing and movement; emotional outbursts are restricted, but when they come, they are heart-wrenching; Isabelle’s confrontation, a collective letter-writing sequence set to song, the climax of Act Two, and the death of a lead character near the end are sequences of immense poignancy and impact.
Designer Richard Kent’s set is simple, stark and largely unchanging, inspired by the newly-developing abstract art movement as well as aerial images of trench formations; with a few seamless changes of props and Jason Taylor’s evocative lighting design, we move convincingly from opulent homes to bleak graveyards, from oppressive tunnels to the chaotic front line.
James Esler as Wraysford leads the ensemble cast with great confidence and humaneness; it is hard to believe this is his professional stage debut, but he is a striking clear talent to watch in the future.
Charlie Russell fully subverts the expectations of those of us familiar with her in the Goes Wrong shows, giving Isabelle a timid stillness which can barely conceal a yearning to be loved and free.
The pair have a love scene against a huge scarlet drape (the only moment of real colour in their lives) which, though graphic, beautifully conveys their oppressed need for each other.
Max Bowden brings humour and huge poignancy to sapper Jack Firebrace as he loses the people most important to him in his life, and Sargon Yelda is a twitching and uptight Azaire, both odious and fully credible.
The ensemble soldiers fully convince as men who have spent every day and night with each other, with the natural chemistry of an infantry clinging to hope in the face of death.
Heart-wrenching, bleak and unforgettable, Birdsong is a superb example of the power of theatre, and the need for all of us to value the time that we have.
Birdsong is showing at Theatre Royal Bath until 30th November. Box office: 01225 448844.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Reviewer: Steve Huggins
