Drama and WW1

The dramatic representation of the First World War poses distinctive challenges. How do you stage trench warfare? How do you represent mass death in a medium designed for living bodies? How do you create the sounds, smells, and physical sensations of combat in a theatre? The plays that have attempted to answer these questions — from R.C. Sherriff's Journey's End (1928) to Joan Littlewood's Oh! What a Lovely War (1963) — represent some of the most innovative and powerful responses to the conflict.

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The Challenges of Staging War