Shellshocked - An Explosive New Play
Written and directed by: Philip Stokes
Set, Sound, and Lighting Design by: Craig Lomas
Review by John Doherty, That Guy in the Foyer
The Arch – Holden Street Theatres, 32 – 34 Holden Street, Hindmarsh (Adelaide)
21 February 2025- 23 March 2025
“The horrors of war have broken young Wesley, but could the madness he encounters beyond it save or destroy a soldier's shellshocked mind?
This is theatre at its best! I left The Arch shaken to my core!
Wesley (Jack Stokes), a young soldier not long returned to his Yorkshire home from the horrors of the Western Front, is in need of work. While Wesley was struggling to survive the putrid mud and relentless shelling of the Somme, his father died; now Wesley must provide for his mother and sisters. The play opens to find Mr Lupine (Lee Bainbridge), a portrait artist, in his studio waiting for Wesley to arrive. The young man’s mother has sent Lupine her son’s sketch book- “portfolio,” as Lupine later insists- with the view to securing her not yet twenty-year-old son an apprenticeship. Wesley arrives, his late father’s suit awkwardly draped on his young frame. Encouraged by his doctor to “bury the horrors in his mind,” Wesley is keen to make a good impression. Philip Stokes’ compelling script wastes no time in making things uncomfortable! Lupine’s excessively generous offer of £10.00 per day for Wesley’s work is the least of the boy’s problems! Lupine immediately starts to dismantle young Wesley in the most ghastly, manipulative way, at first snidely commenting on his manners, then insidiously undermining the young man’s reason service during the war. This is merely the beginning of the uneasy escalating tension pervading the play. Wesley’s jokes are met with Lupine’s calculated laughter which ceases abruptly only to be followed by interrogation. Lupine’s cruelty is highlighted by an action I will refrain from describing here; suffice it to say it is a vicious example of gaslighting - that turns out not to be!
Lupine’s darkly mischievous humor, skillfully played by Bainbridge, and its descent into something much more sinister, hints what could be misconstrued as a level of sophistication.
However, initially hesitant and acquiescent to Lupine- the boy needs the work- Wesley emerges as a man with a strength that can only arise from experiencing existential threat, both in the trenches of the Western Front and here when confronted with a threat to his inherent decency. Stokes is, quite simply, superb in this role!
Lupine’s “complexity,” it turns out, is merely a mechanism to mask his shallowness; profoundly aware of his existential void Lupine seeks validation and is prepared to just about anything to get it!
Craig Lomas’ set, sound and lighting design creates ambiance complimentary to Bainbridge and Stokes’ performances and Stokes’ seniors’ deft direction.
It came as no surprise to learn playwright Philip Stokes is recognized by the British Library as a culturally important playwright of the 21st century!
This is superb theatre!
Go! See it!!!