Oh, the horror of war!
It is a message we’re all familiar with. All you have to do is turn on a television and you’ll see it written in every pixel. You can see men with blooded hands wailing, women barely containing their grief beneath burqas. Just the other day, a sedan exploded in a city street. Young people in the West have grown up with these images. They have normalised fear, making terror just another part of the everyday. You could almost say that we’re too comfortable with the idea of violence.
It is within this disturbing social phenomenon that Chris Beckey’s Children of War tries to find something new to say about youth and conflict.
Based on Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad, this co-production between La Boite Indie and The Danger Ensemble takes the youngest players from the Greek classics and places them in a modern setting, leaving all major players off stage. Characters like Achilles and Prince Hector are only spoken of, or openly fantasised about, through the voices of teenagers growing up on either side of the Trojan War.
It is certainly an intriguing concept and one that director Steven Mitchell Wright injects some much-needed energy into. While the projections of news updates and online video content make for obvious links to the present, it’s the setting of a child’s playground that strikes with the greatest effect. Dominated by dull greys and browns, the scenery reeks of innocence lost and a faint hope for the revival of juvenile delights. It’s a haunting image, which hints at a forthcoming investigation into generational trauma.
Sadly, this never happens. Beckey’s adaptation never really creates an emotional tether for the audience to latch onto. Most of the play has you enduring a series of longwinded monologues about the war; how awful it is and how very horrid the war makes each character feel. Despite all the confessing on stage though, there are very few tangible emotions to be found. These speeches fail to supply the intimate psychological portraits that they should. Instead we are given hollow caricatures; people who exist solely on the sort of surface emotions that are typical of the war genre.
Among the banality though, there are some genuine moments of intrigue. The young cast appeared more comfortable (and believable) when they address each other rather than the audience. They bitch, tease and hide behind pretences, just as teenagers do on a daily basis. It was in these familiar moments that the audience almost found the emotional link that we so desperately needed. But these moments never lasted very long. We would often lose them to the next monologue or to a drawn out pause for drama that simply wasn’t there.
High concept theatre is difficult but can work if you achieve the right balance. Within epic storytelling, one must provide those gut-wrenching insights into not only society but the human condition itself. Plays like Angels in America achieve this best by allowing characters’ personal dilemmas to act like a lens; both framing and involving the audience in the bigger picture.
I admire the intent of Children of War. World conflict through young eyes is a perfectly relevant subject, which warrants (and needs) exploring. I can only hope though, that next time, it’s done with a little more thought.
Rating: 2 stars out of 5
La Boite Indie & The Danger Ensemble present
Children of War
By Chris Beckey
Director & Designer Steven Mitchell Wright
Producer Katherine Quigley
Lighting Designer Ben Hughes
Sound Designer Dane Alexander
Media Producer Tyronne Curtis
Dramaturg Simon Tate
Cast: Taryn Allen, Sam Barnett, Sam Lara Canin-Henke, Jordan Kadell, Elle Mickel, Patrick O’Connor, Charlie Schache and Eva Rae Smith
Roundhouse Theatre, Kelvin Grove
14 November – 1 December
