Dunedin’s Jack Braithwaite doesn’t have to go to France in 1916, but he goes, in part at least because of beliefs about decency and truth. But, far from defending his values in the trenches, he finds himself caught up in a system where decency and truth have lost their meaning, and where he becomes a victim not of German bullets but of his own side’s callous incompetence.

Playwright Philip Braithwaite parallels his great-uncle Jack’s story with his own quest to find out what really happened in an episode of family history generally understood to be shameful, but whose details were until recently not fully known.

As well as Jack and Philip, their fathers are major characters, both conservative in attitudes and habits, and this similarity is underscored by Simon O’Connor’s playing both. He emphasises Philip’s father’s dogged irascibility, also plays some military characters. 

Jonathan Martin plays Jack, demonstrating how a well-meaning Kiwi could make the sort of mistakes that led to his war being even more hellish than most. Other fine performances come from Ben Van Lier as Phil, the writer whose determination to find the truth takes him to France and leads to family friction at home; and Alexander Walker, playing both Jack’s brother Eric and Alex Little, the Australian soldier whose influence hastens Jack’s downfall. 

Visually the production, directed by Roy Ward, is notable for Stephen Kilroy’s precise and atmospheric lighting on an effective set, designed and built by Peter King, on which Dunedin domestic interiors co-exist with French countryside and a military prison cell. 

The War Play’s depiction of war’s inhumanity is horrifying. Commissioned by the Fortune Theatre and supported by Lottery Grants Board WW100 funding, it makes a significant contribution to New Zealand artistic representations of the First World War, and it’s appropriate that its world premiere should be in Jack’s home town.

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The terrible threats and dark deeds faced by New Zealand soldiers during World War 1 – from their own side as well as the enemy – are revealed in Philip Braithwaite’s heartfelt new play, The War Play.

Supported and produced by the Dunedin’s Fortune Theatre, which assisted Braithwaite with sourcing WW100 funding for the project and workshopped its early drafts, the work had its world premiere on Saturday night [March 28]. A good-sized Sunday afternoon audience were kept spellbound throughout as four superb players – Jonathan Martin, Simon O’Connor, Ben Van Lier, and Alexander Walker – brought this important and very personal new play to life under the direction of Roy Ward. 

Exploring the terrible wartime experiences of an increasingly bewildered Jack Braithwaite and his young comrades, The War Play also highlights how the perceived shame of his actions and the horror of his fate resonated in his family for generations. 

Jonathan Martin is superb in the role of the cheeky larrikin Jack, who goes to war for ‘King and Country’ and whose kind heart is ultimately his undoing. His growing bewilderment and despair as impending doom marches inexorably towards him is heart-breaking.

Ben Van Lier is equally fine as the playwright and Jack’s great-nephew, Phil Braithwaite, whose search for answers takes him half-way around the world and into a maze of darkness, official half-truths, and outright lies. It is a testing emotional journey, for both himself and his elderly father, highlighting the destructive force of a brutal military episode on a proud Dunedin family. 

In the roles of the fathers of both Phil and Jack Braithwaite, Simon O’Connor is at his wonderfully sensitive best, revealing the broken hearts under the stiff upper lips. O’Connor also tackles several military characters, including the indifferent prison camp officer whose parting words to a terrified, doomed Jack are “I warned you not to trust the officer class.” 

Alexander Walker is also impressive in multiple roles, including Jack’s brother Eric and Australian soldier Alex Little, highlighting the desperate struggles of young men far from home, trying to make sense of a senseless situation.
With multiple and rapid changes in time and place required to keep the action of The War Play flowing, set designer Peter King’s minimalist creation morphs seamlessly from cosy family lounge to front-line to dank prison cell, with the aid of superb lighting design by Stephen Kilroy.

Despite its many lighter moments, The War Play creates a sense of growing foreboding, as the forces of history gather moment towards an inevitable, nightmarish conclusion.

As a revelation of an extraordinary and terrible chapter in New Zealand’s military history, which has resonated down through the years, The War Play is both heart-wrenching and intensely thought provoking. As a deeply personal exploration of one family’s history, it is equally powerful. 

Highly recommended.

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