They go into combat to fight for their country. They kill the enemy. Their friends die. Then they come home, putting on a brave face to survive what they cannot bear. Their stories must be told before it is too late.
After researching the lives of soldiers who suffered combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or committed suicide or murder after returning to civilian life, a British woman decided to bring their stories to the public in an unusual way.
Rachael Savage, artistic director of Worcester-based Vamos Theatre company, the United Kingdom’s leading full mask theatre company, is bringing the story of these soldiers who “hide behind a mask” to people throughout the United Kingdom, according to the courier.co.uk.
Her show, A Brave Face, is a “co-production with Mercury Theatre Colchester and a co-commission with London International Mime Festival,” the courier.co.uk said in its article. It has been touring the UK since February 2018, “to rave reviews from theatre goers and veterans alike,” the story noted.
What makes the play so unusual is that the actors “wear beautifully moulded pieces of plastic on their face and don’t speak,” the article said. Savage, who founded Vamos in 2006 as a fully masked theatre company, works closely with “mask maker Russell Dean of the Strangeface Theatre Company in Kent,” the story said. She calls masked theatre a “highly visual form of theatre.”
Savage told the courier.co.uk that people during the “first two or three minutes” think,’oh my god what have I come to? I didn’t realise they weren’t going to speak. I’m not going to be to understand it.'” But then, within a few more minutes, she told the paper, they “start laughing because they understand. And the reason they understand is because we have masked actors who have scripts inside their heads.”
“With that internal monologue as we call it, the audience engage so closely that they interpret every single movement, they are able to read the lines, and they hear the lines of the script in their head, and because they are looking to interpret, they meet us half way,” she said in the article.
Because the show presents a sensitive subject and because of the number of veterans who might attend, the theatre has “produced a Trigger and Safety Sheet which pre-warns audience members about show content and themes, helping to minimise potential triggers for those living with PTSD,” the article stated.
Savage, who was “already ‘anti-war,'” spent two years “speaking to ex and serving soldiers, families and health professionals,” according to the article. She said the show “aimed to get to the heart of the soldiers’ stories and the struggles of their loved ones,” whom she called “a hidden army of wives, partners, children and parents who are Britain’s ‘true conscripts.'”
See the unusual masks the actors wear and learn more about this story of many veterans whose stories must be told before it is too late here.
