A single microphone rises from a misty stage in a production based on Vonnegut’s 1969 novel Slaughterhouse-Five. This is the name of the building in which he and other prisoners of war were, fortuitously, sheltering when Dresden was firebombed early in 1945.
The play starts with Vonnegut’s trip back to Dresden in the 1960s where he wonders at the greenery, ‘there must be tons of bonemeal in the ground.’ He adds that his taxi-driver’s mother was incinerated in the firestorm which killed 25,000 in a single night.
Thereafter we switch multiple times between the 1940s, the 1960s and another planet in the 4th dimension which mirrors the mental disconnection of the main character.
Vonnegut was a science fiction writer whose alter-ego in this novel is Billy Pilgrim, his representative in time travel. Billy takes in some of his experiences including ordinary life such as his daughter’s wedding, the bullying in the army and the sheer weird stuff of his abduction to another plant.
Billy is abducted by the Tralfamadorians who take him to their homeland and put him in a zoo cage where they watch him. In time they generously provide another human, a porn star, for him to mate with.
Billy tries to interpret the civilisation of the Trafalmadorians with their travel in the 4th dimension and their fatalistic philosophy that ‘everybody has to do whatever he does’ and has always been doing it, over and over again. ‘Here we are trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why.’
Pondering on this determinism and endless repetition helps Billy to come to terms with his trauma. Amid the fantastic, some scenes seem like real events, such as Billy’s hospitalisation for post-traumatic stress disorder brought on by his wartime experiences
It is hard not to see Billy Pilgrim’s experiences of being ‘unstuck in time’, vacillating between different milieu, as mental responses to intolerable horror. The Children’s Crusade of the title is a reference to the extreme youth of many of the American conscripts who a character compares to the doomed children on the 13th century Crusade.
This theatrical experience is enriched by the jaunty humour of the piece which finds fun even in brutality and bullying. An enthusiastic cast of four playing multiple characters bring great versatility to this production.
The set is pleasantly familiar, with an old pyramid shaped dial-up telephone, a two champagne glasses, an office swivel chair. These are backed up by an opaque screen on which dates are projected along with and brilliant phantoms like a pugilistic soldier in drag and a barbershop quartet.
The play is a mix of 1950s or 60s style sci-fi, of a satire on 1940s army life and a musing on huge events like the bombing of Dresden which dwarf the individual. It is a very good telling of the book, it is evocative and engaging, but the tension and progression usual in a play evades this piece of drama.
Brockey Jack Studio Theatre https://brockleyjack.co.uk/
Playwright: Kurt Vonnegut adapted by Eric Simonson
Cast: Sofia Engstrand, Alex Crook, Ben Howarth, Ethan Reid
Duration: 90 minutes no interval
Until: October 19