"O'Flaherty V.C."
By George Bernard Shaw

Premiere: 4th May 2006
Further performances: 5th, 6th, 18th, 19th, 20th May
at kkt Stuttgart

Bernard Shaw, probably one of the most famous English-language playwrights of all times, is best known for clothing provocative political and social messages in concise, witty dialogue. "O'Flaherty V.C.", a one-act play first performed by an amateur group on the Western Front in 1916, introduces us to Dennis O'Flaherty, a young Irish soldier from a peasant family who has just been awarded the prestigious Victoria Cross for his outstanding service in the British army. General Sir Pearce Madigan, the English owner of the Irish estate on which O'Flaherty was raised, brings him home for a recruiting drive, then reunites him with his mother and fiancée over tea. The ensuing conversation is a humorous, at times farcical tour-de-force of British patriotism, the Irish struggle for independence, the war on the Western Front and the merits of family life.

The play will be complemented by a selection of poetry and other material of the period, entitled "A World War I Kaleidoscope". 80 years later, in today's very different political context, both the poems and the play sound uncannily modern.

Director: Susanna Thielecke

Performing: David Kelly, John Plommer, Greta Redmond, Kathleen Clancy

Further teaching materials here