“Love in a time of trauma bonding: Birdsong exemplifies the heart and soul of male friendship during wartime.”
This is a story about love. It is a story about romance and passion between lovers, camaraderie and friendship between soldiers, as well as the bond between family members through upheaval and hardship. Based on Sebastian Faulks’ mighty modern classic, Birdsong is a three-hour, two-interval behemoth that demands your attention.
Set in the lead-up and duration of World War One, the protagonist is Englishman Stephen Wraysford (played by James Esler). We follow his trials and tribulations as he navigates his love for married French woman Isabelle (played by Charlie Russell), and his command of fellow soldiers during the Great War, including at the Somme. Perhaps most importantly, we see the relationship between Wraysford and his
soldiers.
Though simple in its aesthetic, with green slats and industrial pallet-like blocks, the set (designed by Richard Kent) is strikingly effective, particularly when used to portray tunnels or factory machinery. Neat touches include the use of the eponymous Birdsong- blackbirds – as an aural thread throughout the entirety of the production, as well as exquisite attention to detail regarding historically accurate period clothing and military mannerisms, behavior, and attitudes. However, the scale of the stage and cavernous auditorium meant connecting any sense of intimacy that the weighty story was trying to emanate was difficult. It’s possible in smaller venues on this production’s tour that the effect is more apparent to its audience. Claustrophobic tunneling, for example, looked relatively roomy from where I was sitting- probably not the intended effect.
The show was trying to make me care about Isabelle and Stephen when their relationship seemed immaterial and shallow. They fall in “love” far too quickly; she leaves him almost immediately, and then we never see her again until an inconsequential and anticlimactic plot twist reveals itself at the end. I don’t know what their relationship added to this plot, and it just felt like a distraction. I cared more
about soldier Jack Firebrace’s eight-year-old son John, who wasn’t even in the play. The first act would likely benefit from being condensed. Act 1 felt like an entirely different play in comparison to Acts 2 and 3- more like a Ford Maddox Ford novel about Belle Epoque rural France.
Where this show truly excels is the depiction of trench warfare, and the human stories caught up within it. Each of the men in the trenches offers a hauntingly personal account of their circumstances. For example, Tipper (played by Raif Clarke) is the under-aged, terrified teenager trying his best, and Evans (played by Joseph Benjamin Baker) is full of Welsh bravado and optimism. So too are depictions of youth acted out brilliantly. Isabelle’s stepdaughter Lisette (played by Gracie Follows) deftly swings between naivety, obsession, angst, and innocence. The aforementioned Tipper arches between confidence, deference, curiosity, and abject fear. I also felt it said nothing new about trench warfare other than the cliché “war is hell” trope. Perhaps there could have been understated references to current geopolitics – Ukraine’s national bird, the nightingale as the Birdsong perhaps- an addition that would take nothing away from the original story and use of the metaphor for hope during sorrow.
Ultimately, in my opinion, it is probably best to ignore the oddly superfluous romantic subplot and focus on the love between soldiers in a shared time of trauma. In this way, it is a beautiful, stirring piece of theatre told with sensitivity and nuance.