Bush Theatre's Pink Mist is Not to Be Missed
This amazing production makes its anti-war point perfectly, says Penny Flood
Pink Mist isn't as pretty as it sounds, it's the army's term for the blood that comes out of a sniper's target when they're hit. The blood appears pinkish over the distance and the quick burst of blood that comes out makes a misty effect. Or as Arthur tells us in the play:
" A fine spray of pink, a delicate mist,
as if some genie has granted a wish.
There, and then not."
This amazing production brings together dance, poetry, sound and video with devastating effect. It tells the heartbreaking and harrowing story of three Bristol lads who go to fight in Afghanistan, and the damage it does to them and the women who have to pick up the pieces.
The lads, Arthur (Phil Dunster), Taff (Peter Edwards) and Hads (Alex Stedman), in their late teens, bored and frustrated by their limited options and dead end jobs, believe the promises made by the army recruitment office, and sign up.
Six weeks in Catterick and they're off. Young, naive, innocent and so excited to be escaping from their current lives and seeing the world. But that bravado doesn't last long, the cry 'who wants to play war' that echoed around their school playground, doesn't have the same ring to it when Bristol is replaced by Bastion.
Originally written for radio, it's a beautifully crafted, anti-war poem, based on interviews writer Owen Sheers had with soldiers and their families. What we see on stage is what happened in real life.
It opens with Arthur in Bristol, looking back to the day that changed their lives forever, he's not whimsical, just realistic as he says:
"Not going someplace, but leaving somewhere.
Getting out moving on, away from here."
Poetry lends a work a depth not always achievable in normal dialogue, allowing the writer to cut straight to the emotional chase and for the characters to use words in a different way, giving it a rhythm that carries it along as it swings between innocence and horror.
The action moves between Afghanistan and Bristol, from the ostalgia of schooldays to the reality of war, with the playground chant 'who wants to play war' recurring like a chorus.
However, the lyricism doesn't take away the ordinariness of these people, it enhances it. They are everyday people living everyday lives and that's what makes their fate so difficult face up to.
The only props on the stage are a bench and a wheelchair so attention is concentrated on the cast who, thanks to some slick direction, move from athletic balletic in a heartbeat as they act out the battles, the games the horror, the fear and, occasionally, even fun.
It's not just the men who have backgrounds, the women do too. There's Hads mum Sara (Zara Ramm) in denial as she sees the damaged body who's been flown back to Bristol, she only accepts that it's her son when she recognises his tattoo; there's Taff's wife Lisa (Rebecca Killick), angry that friendly fire has been renamed blue-on-blue as if to make it sound less menacing; and Arthur's girlfriend Gwen ( Rebecca Hamilton) believing things would be different if she had pulled him back to bed on that morning and stopped him signing up.
The horror and the futility of war are the issues here, there are no easy answers, it hurts everybody. When the final tragedy hits, although it's been signalled from way back, it's still shocking and heart-rending. These are young people who had lives ahead of them, it really shouldn't have ended like this.
This production makes the point perfectly.
Pink Mist continues at the Bush Theatre until February 13 at 7.30pm nightly with matinees on Wednesday February 2 and 10 and Saturday 6 and 13 at 2.30pm. Book tickets online or call the box office on 020 8743 5050.
February 1, 2016
