Voices From The Front evokes the words and memories of two world wars
Voices FromThe Front: The Radio Show
Conceived by John Cook and Teri Loretto-Valentik
A Plosive production at the Gladstone Theatre to Nov. 11
On one level, Voices From The Front — the latest entry in Ottawa theatre’s popular Radio Show series — may seem simplicity itself. Yet its impact can be powerful.
There’s a row of microphones along the front of the Gladstone Theatre’s playing area. Behind, there’s a row of chairs for the performers as they await those moments when they come forward to read. And in one corner, there’s a piano and the three singing Gladstone Sisters who will be making their own important contribution to the evening.
It’s the standard format for an engaging annual event that revisits the glory days of broadcasting with make-believe recreations of old-time programming.
In past years, Winnie The Pooh and the noirish world of The Maltese Falcon have been affectionately brought to life at the Gladstone by Plosive Productions. But this year strikes a more thoughtful and sombre tone.
John Cook and Teri Loretto-Valentik have prepared a sensitive script fuelled by the language of two world wars: the language both of the leaders at the top and — perhaps most important — the words and emotions of those who served and died at the front as well as those who stayed at home.
The result is both a quiet celebration of heroism and a lamentation for lives destroyed. The focus is on two generations of a fictional family called the Coopers: they provide the filter for the real-life letters and other source material collected for the purpose of this show.
Six actors have been cast to evoke the contrasting sensibilities of the First and Second World Wars — Katie Bunting, David Gerow, Michelle LeBlanc, Chris Ralph, Alex Zwierzchowski and Laurence Wall. And under Teri Loretto-Valentik’s quietly assured direction, the evening achieves an unmistakeable resonance. There’s no grandstanding among these actors — witness Chris Ralph’s restrained but moving delivery of some of Winston Churchill’s most famous speeches or the economy of Michelle LeBlanc’s body language in expressing both joy and sorrow. Every performer finds connections with the human dimension provided by the material. And a special thanks to actor David Whiteley who filled in for an absent Laurence Wall the other night: his sensitive reading of one of legendary CBC correspondent Matthew Halton’s most famous war dispatches provided some of the evening’s most memorable moments.
The Gladstone Sisters — Robin Guy, Nicole Milne and Doreen Taylor-Claxton — are as always a welcome presence, and here they prove a genuine asset in helping the production negotiate more than one mood change. We may get the sweet, rueful nostalgia of It’s A Long Way To Tipperary but we also honour an intensely felt musical setting of In Flanders Fields.
To be sure, it’s a stretch of the imagination to suggest that radio broadcasting, as we experience it here, existed during the First World War. And although Canada’s ban on margarine was temporarily lifted in 1917, that amusing Parkay commercial seems somewhat out of place given that the brand didn’t exist before 1937. But we mustn’t quibble. This instalment of the Radio Show is one of the best that the people at Plosive have given us.
Reviewed by Jamie Portman, photo courtesy of Plosive Theatre
Director: Teri Loretto-Valentik
Set: Ivo Valentik
Sound: Melinda Roy
Lighting: David Magladry
Costume designer not listed
Cast of voice actors
Katie Bunting
David Gerow
Michelle LeBlanc
Chris Ralph
Laurence Wall
David Whiteley (November 9)
Alex Zwierzchowski
Gladstone Sisters
Robin Guy (music director and pianist)
Nicole Milne
Doreen Taylor-Claxton