Many
poems, novels and essays written during and following World War One are
well known today; however, the plays that were a major form of popular
entertainment, as well as a means of communicating with the people on
the home fronts, are mainly forgotten. It
is true that theatre is an ephemeral art. It lives in the minds of the
viewers as well as leaving a scattering of newspaper and magazine
reviews. Scripts for plays written during this period are frequently
very difficult to locate. Many of them were either not published or the
initial publications are now hard to find. There are exceptions such as the British play Journey’s End by R. C. Sherriff and What Price Glory? by American playwrights Laurence Stallings and Maxwell Anderson.
My
search for World War One plays is limited to those that were performed
by professional acting companies. Therefore, they received reviews by
seasoned newspaper critics. Also records exist designating the length of
the run each production had in major theatre cities such as London,
Paris, Berlin and New York. These
professionally mounted productions tell a lot about what audiences
wanted, needed and maybe just tolerated in the home countries of the
playwrights. There is also information about the play when it was
performed outside its country of origin.
These plays reveal haunting portraits of the struggles, fears, emotions that the war had inflicted upon the people in every country where they were performed. The plays speak with a direct voice of the times. They also expose many societal changes that the war was creating. The war years were an era in which the styles of drama were evolving—realism, naturalism and even the final stages of romanticism were being slowly replaced by expressionism and other experimental “isms”. We understand today how difficult change can be and many of the plays illustrate how fast paced change was during the war years and following.
These plays reveal haunting portraits of the struggles, fears, emotions that the war had inflicted upon the people in every country where they were performed. The plays speak with a direct voice of the times. They also expose many societal changes that the war was creating. The war years were an era in which the styles of drama were evolving—realism, naturalism and even the final stages of romanticism were being slowly replaced by expressionism and other experimental “isms”. We understand today how difficult change can be and many of the plays illustrate how fast paced change was during the war years and following.
Another
area of interest for me associated with these plays is the major names
in theatre that were involved with the productions. Some were
innovators, others were old establishment and many were rising
stars--individuals such as Max Reinhardt, Sarah Bernhardt, Charles
Frohman, Lynn Fountanne, David Belasco and Gabriel Pierné.
During
the years of the centenary commemoration for World War One, it is
appropriate to have an exchange about these plays, to hear the voices of
those who crafted them, to learn the audiences’ reactions, to know the
criticism of the plays that were staged and to be open to all
considerations relating to the topic. Readers of this blog are invited
to ask questions and to contribute commentary about World War One
theatre pieces, playwrights and artists who created productions relating
to the war years and reflecting upon it afterwards between the years
1919-1934.
You may be interested to read: HOW I THINK ABOUT PLAYS