Regina-based performer Vincent Murphy was at the Humboldt & District Gallery to present his one-man play, "Tommy Goes to War" on Oct. 29.
He played several different characters, including a recruiting officer, a general, a little girl named Rachel, and the eponymous Tommy, both as a young and old man. His play chronicled WWI from the perspective of Tommy as a young man, his sister Rachel, the commanding officer, and then Tommy reminiscing about the war with his friend. In it, the audience learned about the emotional toll war took on not only the soldiers, but also the families waiting at home.
"I wanted to be sure that it wasn't a documentary, that it wasn't a lecture. It had to be spoken from the heart," Murphy said. "And so I took stories that I had been told and read and took the emotion of that and put it into the play. This is why, when I tell it, it's totally in the first person."
After the performance, he said he based the stories in the play on things he had been told, especially by his uncle, who had been in WWI. In addition to personal stories from his family and other veterans that he had met, he researched for the play by reading up on the war.
"It's part of who I am; I had my family involved in the First World War and Second World War and Korea," Vincent said. "It's something that I wanted to do to honour them. But more particularly, this whole era of the First World War changed much about who we are as a nation in the world. It just changed much of who we are and I think people sort of forgot the human toll of that and the futility of it. The waste and the terror. You've got these young men; they were brave and they did what they could under extremely trying, difficult circumstances."
WWI was different from previous wars because industrialization made it the first mechanized war. This meant a lot of damage was done on a much larger scale. As well, it was the first war with trenches, meaning the soldiers stayed in one place in a sort of siege, whereas prior to this the cavalry moved around on horses.
Museum staff member, Brenda Duerr, said that it was obvious Murphy had an emotional connection to the piece.
Though this year is the 100th anniversary of WWI, Murphy didn't originally write it for that purpose. Originally it was a bigger production, but in July he scaled it down to the one-man performance.
"I'm killing myself doing this, because I can do this on my own," he said.
Murphy has experience acting in plays, and says there is a completely different dynamic doing one-man plays versus acting with others. With others, the play has to go exactly according to script, whereas with his one-man performances, he has a basic foundation for how the play will go but will change little things depending on audience reaction.
"I feed off that, so it's alive. It's very much alive," he said. "It's like when you're driving down the highway. You have a good idea of where you're going, but someone may cut you off, you may get a flat tire you don't know. So that's interesting. It's a wonderful journey."
