Jack is in France, staying in a tent with the lads. He arrived the night before by ferry and traveled inland. It's very novel and interesting at present he writes to his wife Gertie (Angela Clare) , We laugh and joke the whole day through. It's the beginning of the first world war. The story of Sergeant-Major Jack Adam (Richard Hollick) and his wife is detailed in this quiet, moving and true epistolary play. A loving husband is heading towards the front lines. His family, back in Doncaster, wait in cheerful hope. They write, describing the common days they share under a single sun in two different countries. What went on each day, unimportant trivia and the children's antics, fills the pages. Jack is at his desk in WWI field gear. The letters are piled up high. The warm feeling of Gertie in his arms, just a short time ago, can now only be rendered through words on pages around him. Gertie sits on a chair in her living room, a smile on her face, thinking only of her love . She never dares to imagine the dreadful possibility; that these written words, describing ordinary days, would be all they would ever have. The feeling watching this play is the sense of the distance growing between them , then pulled back a little by each letter. Slowly, imperceptibly, the gap widens and eventually becomes an awful chasm. He misses her so much, so dearly that it almost consumes him. The sweet ordinary words in each exchange become more and more intoxicating as they dwindle down to the last thousand, the last hundred, the last sentence, and then the last two words Gertie ever receives ; Love, Jack.Spliced into this story is one of Hiram Maxim (James Hester), the American inventor of the self-powered machine gun. Between the longing pauses of Gertie and Jack's letters, he details with academic coolness his accomplishments; 600 rounds per minute, long range, operated by a single man. Then there is the royal admiration and fame that followed as well as orders for the front. His words; a wedge, he; a dark messenger of fate. His role in the military industrial complex and his hunger for building guns is only matched by the intensity of longing between the homely English couple.Adapted by Peter Spafford from actual letters and memoirs, and directed by Olwyn May, attention is maintained throughout. The actors perform a difficult task in that they rarely address each other directly yet still respond in a personal way. It is to great effect when the finally do face one other. Ms. Clare has an unaffected sincerity that adds to the heartfelt rendering of this piece. Mr. Hollick's Jack is solid English cheer but is no stereotype. He creates a layered, warm, loving dad to great effect.According to the actors (they gave a little show and tell afterwards), the discovery of the letters a few years ago was accidental. They were bundled together for sale at an estate disposition. A friend of the museum called collections department, who took the unusual step and purchased the treasure blind. This randomness reminds us of the hundreds of thousands of families, just like Jack and Gertie, whose letters will never be recovered, and whose love was just as great, who were separated forever not by water but by the cruel, bloody, inhuman vicissitudes of war.
