The Pity of War

The Pity of War

Poems and friendship of Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen in a staged reading of their work.

The Pity of War is a compilation of poems and biographical fragments which bring vividly to the stage the work and friendship of Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. Their friendship was cut sho0rt after only 15 months, but it was a period which produced some of the most powerful war poems ever written and which have helped to change the attitudes of succeeding generations. As Owen wrote in the draft preface to his first volume of poems which he did not live to see published: "This book is not about heroes...My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity"

The Pity of War is not a play, but a dramatic anthology. The actors will read the poems and the letter quotations, but the performance will be staged and dressed for the theatre.

The performance will last 30 minutes and will coincide with the anniversary of Armistice which came into effect at the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918. A donation from the proceeds will be made to the British Legion Poppy Appeal.