With Love From The Trenches

Currently being produced in Adelaide as part of the Cabaret Under The Star festival, Vicky Horwood’s With Love From The Trenches is a very fine example of theatre based on war.

English-born, Adelaide’s well known actor/director Horwood has written the play in honour of the Centenary of WWI and dedicates it to the memory of her grandfather Reginald Sudlow Hawker.  The play has evolved from material she had of her grandfather’s and of a great uncle, together with recently released items from the University of Edinburgh.

With Love From The Trenches is not an indulgent personal family history, however. Told through correspondence between mother and son and interspersed with poems and an occasional recorded song from the era, it evokes memories of any family caught up in war. As such, it is powerful, completely absorbing and intensely moving theatre.

The play embraces the fresh-faced young men who went to The Great War. They were often just teenagers, full of excitement at the adventure they believed would surely await them, only to face the horrors in the trenches of France. It is also a recognition of those who waited at home, especially the mothers. These were mothers who wrote daily letters and sent packages of lovingly crafted goods in the hope they’d reach a son far away, while they prayed return mail from their loved one would bring good news.

In the intimate environs of the smaller theatre at Star Theatres the set is brilliantly simple. Surrounded by a few props including a knitting basket, the mother’s writing table and a couple of chairs sit on one side of the stage.  On the other, a sandbag barrier denotes trenches. Authentic costuming complements the atmospherics and instantly, the audience is drawn into the WWI era and the narrative.

Essentially, the play tells of the importance to the troops of little things, of the comfort of hearing about everyday happenings at home. It also starkly highlights that these young men protected their mothers from the true realities of the trenches, trying to stay positive in their return correspondence and telling little of their suffering.

In addition to writing and directing her short play, Vicky Horwood plays The Mother in this current production. She embodies the gentle stoicism of mothers of the time, aware she has a duty to give up her child to the conflict, yet always there for him, even if far from his side. This is an excellent performance.

Hal Bruce is very good as The Son, a young man who loves his mother but leaves home with an optimistic heart to do his duty. His only link with home thereafter is his loving mother’s correspondence and Bruce does well to convey the need his character has for that link.

The conduit between the war-separated worlds of mother and son is the Muse, played by Russell Starke. His performance is superb as he provides commentary and context regarding a world at war through many wartime poems from the likes of Thomas Hardy, Siegfried Sassoon and more.

Ultimately, With Love From The Trenches encapsulates endurance; not only that of every young person who goes to war, but that of the love of a mother for her child- a bond that lasts forever, whatever the child’s wartime fate may be.

Originally staged earlier this year by St Jude’s Players in Adelaide, it is clear the ongoing relevance of With Love From The Trenches has been recognised, now that it is also being presented by Cabaret Under The Star. In fact, this play would be ideal as a Country Arts touring production and also a Fringe presentation (perhaps even in Edinburgh, considering the University of Edinburgh links to the play’s material). I hope Vicky Horwood takes such potential opportunities further.

In the meantime, Adelaide audiences have their own opportunity right now; a brief window of time to see this terrific example of local historical playwriting at its best.

Lesley Reed

Photographer: Tim Wray