Two's Company presents
My Real War, 1914 - ?

Adapted from War Letters by Havilland Le Mesurier by Tricia Thorns

The Mill Studio, Yvonne Arnaud Theatre and national tour

January/March 2007

Director: Tricia Thorns. Designer: Alex Marker. Lighting Designer: Duncan Coombe. Sound Designer: Adrienne Quartly. Producer: Graham Cowley

Starring: Philip Desmeules

Venues:
The Mill Studio, Yvonne Arnaud Theatre
Donald Roy Theatre, University of Hull
Warwick Arts Centre, University of Warwick
Macrobert, University of Stirling
Theatre Gwynedd, Bangor
Everyman Cheltenham
Aberystwyth Arts Centre
Oxford Playhouse
The Point, Eastleigh

Writing from India
Call up
In France
Training
Dug out on the Western Front
Dealing with lice in clothes
At the front

This play was adapted from a series of letters written by an officer serving in the trenches on the western front.

The challenge was to design a set simple enough both to serve as a backdrop for all the locations the letters were written from - including India and the trenches - and simple enough for two people to put up in forty minutes, load into a small van and transport to the next location. The variety of size and type of venue - ranging from large proscenium arch theatres to small studio spaces - also meant the set had to be flexible enough to look good in any space.

Le Mesurier's trench letters build up such an evocative picture of life on the western front that to attempt to realistically interpret his environment would look clumsy and immobile in comparison. Instead I created a weather-beaten, blank page as backdrop to his words, augmented by video projections of hand-written date captions and selected black and white photos to help set each scene. All of the props for the stories Lieutenant Le Mesurier told came out of an officer's trunk which were then gradually discarded around the stage, creating a heightened sense of the clutter and chaos of trench life.

Last updated: 21 May, 2007