We lower our heads as a hearse passes by, buy a poppy once a year, wave a flag when a regiment returns home from a tour of duty and somehow we are absolved from our collective responsibility to the men and women who have done the dirty work of war.
This deeply depressing and disturbing evening starts with video recordings of returned damaged soldiers and their families coping with post combat stress disorder, moves venue to Portland House and into a play. set in the Valleys with several generations of a damaged family and transfer back into Wales Millennium Centre to conclude with two male dancers in combats giving their interpretation of the grim but vitally important to confront theme.
All are moving, gripping, sad in their own genres and one hopes that maybe at least one person experiences Triptych and thinks again about their attitude to war, to killing, to soldiers, to collective responsibility, conscience and guilt about killing and being killed. That’s not to mention the hypocrisy of politicians, business, churches (of all faiths), the Royal Family, and ultimately all of us in going along with the great deceit surrounding out greatest evil.
Sadly, it is more likely the talking heads in the videos, the wonderful actors in the play – and they really are outstanding – and the exquisite dancers are preaching to the converted but, hey, we all need affirmation from time to time.
While some other performances about the experiences and terrible suffering of soldiers veer into sentimentality and, frankly, could be benefits for Help for Heroes, in their lack of thought, analysis, questioning and often plain honesty, Triptych is a warts and all smack in the face about the suffering of the men and women who come home, seemingly in one piece, but shattered mentally. It also shines a much needed light on the people they leave behind, who they come back to and,perhaps, sometimes it is better they don;t come back to.
Producer Judith Roberts filmed the videos which are shown on simple video screens in a temporary barbed wire topped canvas cube assembled in the blank and bland foyer of WMC. She also wrote and directed the play that is labelled as Triptych II, and transforms the emotions and sufferings of the true accounts and anecdotes into a powerfully gut wrenching, at times shocking and always painfully sincere, raw drama. The cast of Rebecca Harries, Rhys Downing, Ioan Gwyn, Catrin Morgan, Rhys Parry-Jones, Dan Rochford, Ceri Murphy and Gareth ap Watkin take us through a domestic drama set in the living room of a Valleys house that intercuts with soldiers on a set designed by Camilla Clarke that juxtaposes the military with the home front.
It would ruin the play to reveal the narrative which revolves around family members and friends who have all served in conflicts and return, or have not returned, with those invisible scars. Suffice to say there are dramatic twists and turns as the independent personal stories are told and ultimately interrelate. As the parents of the family, Rhys Parry Jones and Rebecca Harries give towering performances.
When the action moves back to WMC we wait for a while an d then go back into that same temporary space created in the foyer where we watched the videos. Now the screens have been removed to host the Gwyn Emberton choreography, performed by Emberton and his equally passionate, lithe and powerful dancer Albert Garcia. The two men work together and intertwine, support and manipulate one another as they move through increasingly traumatised movement culminating in silent screams and uncontrollable shaking. This is a very different dance vocabulary than we have seen in other Emberton work in recent months and his partnership with Garcia is mesmerising and mercurial.
The only real downsides were the use of two venues which seemed unnecessary as all could have been housed in Portland House rather than going back and forward which interrupted the flow of the Triptych and the emotional and intellectual intensity of the evening. The use of both Welsh and English was not as smooth as other bilingual shows I have seen and I am sure I missed something early in the 90 minute play from the Welsh dialogue which impacted the story as it unfurled. Why some of the Welsh dialogue was projected in English and other sections were not must have had an explanation but it jarred when so much of the script was unintelligible to we mere learners. The use of moving from easy and puerile Welsh-English learning phrases into the Arabic language and sentences squaddies would have to say to local people about guns, cars and other urban war scenarios was clever.
Portland House and Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff
In association with WMC and Chapter
Runs until Saturday 11th July 2015.