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Passion
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The Public Reviews
Michael Gray - 3rd December 2011
Edward Bond's short play Passion, written forty years ago for the CND, is a pretty unsubtle piece of agit-prop. Green Shield stamps show its age, but otherwise it remains sharp and pertinent as soldiers continue to die in wars they barely understand.
It's a mythic tale of a mother who cannot accept the death of her innocent soldier son. I felt the piece lost its way slightly with the appearance of the Buddha and the Christ (both despair of bringing peace to mankind) and with the sacrificed soldier's poem from the grave, tellingly delivered though it was by Liam Cadzow Webb. -
Glen's Theatre Blog
Glen Pearce - 2nd December 2011
Freedom. One simple word but a minefield of opinion and consequences. A driver for human rights but conversely often the excuse given for war, Freedom is not easy to definitively define. This emotive word provides the link for two pieces of work by the New Wolsey Theatre's Young Company. The first half a staging of Edward Bond's look at the futility of war, Freedom; the second act a devised response from the Young Company to the themes of the first.
It proves to be an inspired combination, full of poignant emotion and reflection.