Spare and direct, it unsettles with prosaic waiting game of war
By Lucy Komisar
It’s the ordinariness that at the end is so unsettling.
“Journey’s End” is not a Hollywood-style swaggering patriotic war story about
intrepid fighter pilots or its 70’s version of pot-smoking infantrymen. No
glamour or anti-glamour here.
Director David Grindley stages this as the story of prosaic
people caught up in the military aspect of a political game whose purpose is far
beyond them. You don’t ever learn what set off the Germans against the British,
or vice versa. These English soldiers – superbly portrayed by a uniformly
excellent cast -- just focus on staying warm and alive and carrying out orders.
It is a powerful and often poetic production.
The play, by British author R.C. Sherriff, was first
produced in the 1920s. It is based on a true experience of World War I
friendship, bonding and survival. The author didn’t mean this as an anti-war
play, just as a record of what his countrymen went through in the “Great War”
trenches. But we know enough about how unnecessary that war was, just more
failed diplomacy by another name, to find sorrow and horror in the egregious
suffering and loss of life.
The set is a trench in St. Quentin, France, about 165 miles
southwest of Paris, very near Tours in the Loire Valley. In the trench is a wood
hut lit dimly by a few candles. Thin beams hold up ceiling, a crossbeam log
traverses the roof. There is a small table and a couple of wood platforms for
sleeping. The site is 50 yards from the front lines. The day for which the
troops are preparing will see a German assault.
 Captain
Stanhope (Hugh Dancy), the cynical company commander, is from what Americans
would call the heartland: his father is vicar of a country village. He’s been in
the war for three years and his nerves are wrecked. He is wound-up, overwrought,
and drinks to dull the pain. Dancy gives a powerful performance.
Lt. Osborne (Boyd Gaines), his second in command, is a
generation older. A former schoolmaster, he is solid. He loves Stanhope like a
son. Gaines’ portrayal gracefully exhibits Osborne’s steady intelligence and
charm.
Private Mason (Jefferson May), the cook, is working class
and serves the upper class officers the way he would in civilian life.
Just out of school, 2nd Lt. Raleigh (Stark Sands), is
fresh-faced and imbued with the romance of it all. He’s from Stanhope’s village
and courts his sister. His vision of war clashes sharply with Stanhope’s, and
we’ll too soon learn who is right.
 The
horror is matter of fact: a gas mask packed around soldiers’ necks, the
hysterical fear of 2nd Lt. Hibert (Justin Blanchard). The men wonder who will
survive the expected German attack. Stanhope tells Hibert that “sticking it is
the only thing a decent man can do.” That was, of course, the ideology that kept
the men in the trenches.
 There
are suggestions that the problem rests with each country’s leaders: the Germans
allow English soldiers to carry back wounded from the field, even sending up
lights so they can see their way. The German prisoner (Kieran Campion) is
terrified but treated decently. They are all, it would seem, cogs in a wheel
spun by unseen (safe) hands. Hindsight makes the events all the more chilling.
The play is a period piece and seems rather hokey in the
naïveté and simplicity of everyone involved. But perhaps that’s what they were
like in the days before troops realized that incompetent leaders were using them
for cannon fodder. At curtain call, the actors, unsmiling, stand before a wall
covered with the names of the dead.
“Journey’s End.” Written by R.C. Sherriff. Directed by
David Grindley. Set by Jonathan Fensom. Starring Hugh Dancy, Boyd Gaines,
Jefferson Mays, Stark Sands, John Ahlin, Nick Berg Barnes, John Behlmann, Justin
Blanchard, Kieran Campion, John Curless, Richard Poe.
Belasco Theatre, 111 W. 44 St. Tue - Sat 8pm; Wed & Sat
2pm; Sun 3pm. Running time: 2:30. $36.25 - $96.25. 212-239-6200.
http://www.journeysendonbroadway.com/
Photos by Paul Kolnik.
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