Not About Heroes
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Not About Heroes is a drama by Stephen MacDonald about the real-life relationship between the poets Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon.
The play has only two characters: Owen and Sassoon. The story of their friendship is told in a series of flashbacks, narrated by Sassoon who survived World War I (in which Owen was killed). Most of the scenes take place during their time as fellow-patients at Craiglockhart War Hospital near Edinburgh in 1917.
The title is a quotation from the preface Wilfred Owen wrote in preparation for the publication of his collected poems:
"This book is not about heroes. English poetry is not yet fit to speak of them. Nor is it about deeds, or lands, nor anything about glory, honour, might, majesty, dominion, or power, except War. Above all I am not concerned with Poetry. My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity."
[edit] Past Productions
Not About Heroes had its premier at the Edinburgh Festival in 1982 and won a Fringe First award. It toured and came to the King's Head, was adapted for Yorkshire TV and BBC Radio 4, and was published by Faber and Faber, all in 1983. A new production at the Royal National Theatre in 1986 celebrated the centenery of Sassoon's birth. A national tour took place the following year with Paul Shelley playing Siegfried Sassoon and Stephen McGann playing Wilfred Owen.. In 1992, the author directed a revised text for the Citizen's, Glasgow - a production which afterwards was seen in Shrewsbury as part of the celebrations marking the centenary of Owen's birth.
A production by Dianne West at the Williamstown Theatre Fesival transferred to New York in 1985. Edward Herrmann and Dylan Baker both won OBIE awards. The 1987 Stratford Ontario production, with Nicholas Pennell and Henry Czerny, was revived the following year.
Notable productions of Not About Heroes in recent years have included a version mounted for the 2002 Hay-on-Wye literary festival, starring Roger Moss and Owen Sheers. It was directed by Cathy Gill and produced by the novelist, Louis de Bernières. The following year, Peter Dickson and Andrew Butterworth starred in a well-received production at the Crescent Theatre, Birmingham. In 2005 MADHouse Productions staged a stiking version in the intimate surroundings of the Baron's Court Theatre in west London. It was also performed in stunning fashion in the early 1990's at The Round House Theatre in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC.
