The next production at the Souris Valley Theatre will study the impact of war on those who served, but also the camaraderie that grew between the soldiers.
A Soldier’s War will be performed at the theatre’s Frehlick Hall on July 5 and 6. Performances will be at 7:30 p.m. each night.
Josh Ramsden, who is the producer and writer for the show, as well as one of the actors, said A Soldier’s War is based on the letters his grandfather wrote home while serving with the Canadian Army during the Second World War.
“I got all of the letters he wrote home after he passed away in 2008,” said Ramsden.
The seven-actor cast includes five actors playing Canadian soldiers during the war. Their adventures start with basic training in Nova Scotia, and continue through the D-Day invasions on June 6, 1944, and their return home.
Each of the five soldiers represents a different perspective provided by Ramsden’s grandfather’s experiences.
“Through his letters, I found that there were different perspectives or voices, and so I came up with the everyman voice and the leader voice and the lover voice and the religious voice, and extrapolated them, and built characters using those words that he had written home,” said Ramsden.
He wrote A Soldier’s Voice to explore what it might have been like to be a soldier, and examine the psychological and emotional struggle. It also studies the difficulties of being away from home.
“I didn’t want to do that around one person, because I felt, and I feel to this day, that if I write it about one particular person, I’m then suggesting war does this to everyone,” said Ramsden.
“My belief is that war has the ability of affecting people in a variety of ways, and it’s important that we don’t whitewash the affects it can cause,” he added later.
The show is also designed awareness of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and operational stress injury (OSI), and organizations which support those battling the mental health issues.
Strikes Twice Productions, the company that produces A Soldier’s War, has partnered with Wounded Warriors Canada, and is associated with the Canadian Mental Health Association Saskatchewan branch’s OSI Canada.
A Soldier’s War explores the effects that repeated exposure to war-time trauma may have on a person, and how that exposure may fundamentally change them.
“It showcases the potential of what experiencing repeated exposure to traumatic events can have,” said Ramsden.
He hopes it will lead to conversations among the spectators after the play.
Ramsden noted A Soldier’s War was shown in Regina last year and in Saskatoon last month. Souris Valley Theatre artistic director Kenn McLeod was part of the cast for the Regina shows, but won’t be on stage in Estevan.
“The thing that caught me off guard is that people have been able to relate to it in a variety of ways,” said Ramsden. “We’ve had a lot of people come who have either had parents who were in the war, or have kids who were in Afghanistan. I had a Vietnam War veteran come see it, and what they kept saying to me was they found it relatable, and they can connect to a particular character, which validated the importance of having more than one focal character.”
Other people have told him that they didn’t realize the impact of PTSD or OSI for Canada’s veterans.
He’s also pleased there is now a production about PTSD and OSI that is based on the life of a Canadian and written by a Canadian. Ramsden noted many of these shows have been about Americans.
