theatre

Publications by New Journal Enterprises

Home

Archive

Competition

The Review - THEATRE by HOWARD LOXTON
Published: 21 February 2008

The play questions the whole nature of memory

Not quite over for the unknown soldier

THE LIVING UNKNOWN SOLDIER
Arcola Theatre

THE memorial tablets that record the losses of the First World War line the back of the stage for this play, based on a book by historian Jean-Yves Le Naour.
They include the names of the missing as well as the dead. Missing: that means no record of death; they may have been blown to bits but they may also be alive and families and lovers may still be hoping, or dreading, that they will turn up. “We will remember them,” we hear them chanting.
Those words, the columns of names and the poppy fields of Flanders, which also feature in the set, may now be Remembrance Day clichés but are no less evocative for that.
A sense of the loss and horror of the First World War is a subtext to this play but its story is that of a man who may be remembered but does not himself remember. He was a real man, though he may stand for many, found wandering on a railway station in Lyon in 1918 with no memory and no identity.
Given the name Anthelme Magin he was sent to an asylum for the insane at Rodez. “What happened to him to have this devastating effect?” is there as an ever-present question.
Sebastian Armesto’s production takes us through 20 years of trying to discover who he is and reunite him with his family, up to the day the Nazis marched into Rodez.
From the moment Anthelme emerges from the sandbagged earth, it is an intense theatrical experience. Each and every one of this fine cast of eight at some time becomes Anthelme, as well as playing his doctor, officials, and the families who seem desperate to claim him.
But this play is not only about their traumas. It questions the whole nature of memory, its reinvention and reordering of the past and the way it produces a history that can be a fiction, whether in our personal lives or our idea of something as big as a world war.
Until March 15
020 7503 1646

Comment on this article.
(You must supply your full name and email address for your comment to be published)

Name:

Email:

Comment:

» A-Z of Theatre
» Local Reviews
» Local Listings
» West End Reviews
» West End Listings
» Theatre Tickets
» Theatre & Hotel Packages