Choir session yesterday was all about Christmas carols. I guess I can't put off the inevitable - the season is coming! I do love Christmas but it all starts too soon and I try to avoid it as long as possible. I thought the carol session might be boring because, to be honest, I know most backwards, virtually every verse word perfect and can descant on most. Last year our previous MD didn't really give us much in the way of contrast - not much harmony, but Ben is different and I was pleased with the harmonies because it makes it all so much more interesting and we sound very, very good! So it was a good session of singing.
After choir I headed off to Richmond Theatre for a matinee performance of Regeneration, adapted from the Pat Barker novel. The play is set in Craiglockhart Hospital in England during WWI where Siegfried Sassoon is sent to recover after his declaration against war. Here he meets Wilfred Owen and friendship forms between themselves and other patients as each comes to terms with what they have seen in the battle field. They are treated by Captain William Rivers, a Psychiatrist whose job it is to get the men fit and back into active service. He has compassion for the men and has his own battle with conscience about what he is doing.
The play shows the affects on soldiers of what they have seen and there are ethical questions about sending men back to the front who suffer psychological problems.
Sassoon at this point has already published a collection of war poems and Owen tells Sassoon that he should go back to France because he writes so well, stating who else will write the truth. Sassoon also encourages Owen in his poetry. The two part as each goes his own way but they are still linked but the need to tell ordinary people what war is really like and when Sassoon is shot and sent back to recover Owen asks to be sent on active service because he feels there should be a poet out there in the field. Owen is killed about a week before Armistice Day.
The play is well acted and there was the occasional scene that made the audience jump! There was some humour too. I think in war humour helped get the men through - I think of the excellent Wiper Times and the TV drama shown a while back. The play suns until Saturday.
After choir I headed off to Richmond Theatre for a matinee performance of Regeneration, adapted from the Pat Barker novel. The play is set in Craiglockhart Hospital in England during WWI where Siegfried Sassoon is sent to recover after his declaration against war. Here he meets Wilfred Owen and friendship forms between themselves and other patients as each comes to terms with what they have seen in the battle field. They are treated by Captain William Rivers, a Psychiatrist whose job it is to get the men fit and back into active service. He has compassion for the men and has his own battle with conscience about what he is doing.
The play shows the affects on soldiers of what they have seen and there are ethical questions about sending men back to the front who suffer psychological problems.
Sassoon at this point has already published a collection of war poems and Owen tells Sassoon that he should go back to France because he writes so well, stating who else will write the truth. Sassoon also encourages Owen in his poetry. The two part as each goes his own way but they are still linked but the need to tell ordinary people what war is really like and when Sassoon is shot and sent back to recover Owen asks to be sent on active service because he feels there should be a poet out there in the field. Owen is killed about a week before Armistice Day.
The play is well acted and there was the occasional scene that made the audience jump! There was some humour too. I think in war humour helped get the men through - I think of the excellent Wiper Times and the TV drama shown a while back. The play suns until Saturday.
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