It is early in World War II in the town of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, England. Just about every night the citizens are terrified by Nazi bombing raids in the harsh war just underway. There are bombs dropping everywhere. The shrill, whistling sound of the bombs hurtling down from German airplanes are as scary as the explosions themselves. In one of the homes in the town are gathered members of the Stott family, boyfriends and friends. The play opens with the sounds of bombs and the family huddled together by resident George Stott, who is also the neighborhood Civil Defense warden. One bomb tumbles through the sky with a long shrill whistle but does not yet hit the ground. The Stotts wait, and wait, and wait. Everybody looks around quizzically and are stunned to discover that it was not a bomb that they heard, but a tea kettle whistling that its water was ready. They all give a nervous smile.
It is one of the many nervous smiles in C.P. Taylor’s funny, dramatic, powerful and heart breaking play, And A Nightingale Sang, that just opened at the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey at Drew University, in Madison.
The beauty of the play is that it is about a big, big story, World War II, and yet it is a small play, a play highlighted not by FDR or Winston Churchill or the man who sent the bombs, Herr Hitler. No, it is a small play about that big story. The people in it represent a lot – millions – of British townspeople who every night shake and quiver beneath the bombs just as they do.
Ben Eakeley and Monette Magrath. Photo by Sarah Haley
Playwright Taylor has written a good, poignant play that everybody in the audience gets involved with immediately. It is a great play thanks to the deft, no, brilliant, work of director Bonnie Monte, the theater’s soon retiring artistic director. She not only makes the characters in the play come to life, but shows how they represent any group of civilians in any war (Monte notes the current war in the Ukraine in her notes in the program).
The Stotts are a diverse group of people, all flung together by World War II. There is George, trying to become a Communist (why on earth he wants to be one is not clearly explained). There is a boyfriend, Eric, home on leave with his army buddy Norman, who falls for Helen Stott, 33 and never married and very, very hopeful about Norman. There is Peggy, an elderly women afraid of her own shadow and terrified that her husband, George, is going to be killed every time he walks out of the house. There is an elderly man puttering around the house looking for something to do and a funny man.
They are all targets of the Nazis and death and destruction can, and does, rain down upon them. There is so much of it that after awhile, bombs become part of everyday life, like a good cup of tea. Fear rains down on them the rest of the time.
Sam Tsoutsouvas and Sarah Deaver. Photo by Sarah Haley
This wonderful play is part of the big story of World War II, but mostly it is about the little people in the war, in any war, who suffer greatly from the horror of it.
And they wonder when it will end, or if it will end (remember the war in Afghanistan, that took, what, 456 years to end?
The play has several nice small love stories with which everybody in the audience can somehow relate to during the performance. One heart breaking story is that of Helen, who, at 33, finally seems to have met a man she can marry, a soldier, but – WHOA – does he have a problem,. How does Helen deal with his problem? Defeat it? Walk away from it? Pretend it doesn’t exist? Live with it, take whatever she can from it?
Ben Eakeley and Monette Magrath. Photo by Sarah Haley
The whole play is like that. It is a series of small stories within this every big story. These people don’t get any closer to Winston Churchill than listen to him on the radio. The Civil Defense Warden plays a lot of tunes on the piano and huddles with everybody else when the bombs fall. The two soldiers are trapped in the house with everybody else and can’t do anything. They, together, just by living out their lives the best they can, successfully, will get through the carnage, their face tea kettles whistling throughout the night.
The play’s director, Monte, holds all of these small stories in her hand and pulls them together to create a simply marvelous look at the good people of England in World War II. Her deft skills turn what could been a dry chronicle of wartimes into a fascinating story about people under stress, who not only survive, but prevail.
She gets superb work from a group of highly skilled actors. None is better than the other. They are Monette McGrath as Helen, Marion Adler as Peggy, Benjamin Eakely as Norman, Sarah Deaver as Joyce, Christian Frost as soldier Eric, John Little as George, and Sam Tsoutsouvas as the elderly friend.
Together, these performers tell us the story of a family, but in a small way, the story of the family of the British people in wartime.
From left to right: Christian Frost, Sam Tsoutsouvas, Marion Adler, John Little, and Sarah Deaver. Photo by Sarah Haley
Could this have been a play about Americans? No, except for Pearl Harbor, we were never attacked – constantly attacked. Life is different with bombs falling just about every night. These people reached deep into their hearts and souls every night for some five years – and won the war.
The play’s set designer is Brittany Vasta. The costume Designer is Brian Russman. Lighting is by Matthew Adelson and sound by Drew Sensue-Weinatein. Production stage manager is Alison Cote.
Adelson and Sensue-Weinstein do a phenomenal job with the sporadic bombing raids. I continually thought they were going to drop a bomb on me – great, great work. You think you are in England looking up at the Luftwaffe – scared stiff.
See this just superb play. It will renew your faith in humanity.
And a Nightingale Sang... is running at the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey in the F.M. Kirby Shakespeare Theatre (36 Madison Avenue in Madison, NJ) from July 16-30, 2023. Click here for more information or to purchase tickets.
The cast of And a Nightingale Sang... Photo by Sarah Haley
